Extended All India Meeting of Coffee Farmers and Public Seminar 11-12 June, 2022

All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS) and P Sundarayya Memorial Trust are organising an All India Meeting of Coffee Farmers and a Public Seminar on 11-12 June, 2022 at Virajpetta, Karnataka.

The two-day meeting is being held as part of the efforts by the AIKS to build and organise farmer producers around crop/sector-specific issues. The liberalisation policies have affected the coffee sector in India especially the small growers. There is a tremendous increase in the cost of production with the hike in the price of inputs. The corporates have been tightening their stranglehold on the farmers. Only a meagre value of the fine consumer products goes back to primary producers’ world over. The small growers are forced to sell their coffee as berry or green beans since they cannot hold the products due to financial constraints which provides opportunity to the traders and industrialists have access to cheap raw products and extract high profit.

AIKS is of the informed opinion that Coffee Board should promote Co-operatives of coffee growers to trade their products in local and international markets. This helps to take advantage of the scale of production by facilitating input supply, collective cultivation, procurement, storage and wear housing, processing, value addition, marketing and research and development.

Delegates from Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh will attend the two-day meeting. There will be seven academic sessions on different topics related to the coffee sector, along with an open session on the  Challenges and possibilities in Coffee Sector -in ensuring remunerative Income to coffee producers.

Leading scholars and activists with subject expertise, namely Dr. Vijoo Krishnan, Dr. H T  Mohan Kumar, Bose Mandanna, Dr. Durga Prasad, PK Abdul Lathif, B Shivakumaraswamy, Jayakumar C, Davey Cherimulla, Dr. Ashwini Kumar, Dharmesh, P Krishnaprasad, Naveen Kumar, D Raveendran, PK Suresh, K R Jubunu, GC Bayyareddy and  Nidheesh J Villatt will lead the sessions. A detailed programme schedule is attached with the mail. We request you to cover the workshop by sending your reporters and photographers.

With regards,

Sd/-

Hannan Mollah

General Secretary, AIKS

Member, Board of Trustees,

P Sundarayya Memorial Trust