Black Pepper Cultivation Enhances the Income of Adivasi Coffee Farmers

Black pepper Cultivation has been found to enhance the income of Adivasi Coffee farmers of the Eastern Ghats. Usually, it is carried out between coffee plants. Undoubtedly, Black pepper cultivation is a pretty normal practice in the various coffee-growing areas, but the Adivasi coffee farmers have now realised the significance of this spice crop, which could simply boost their income.

Black pepper cultivation provides stable financial support

The prices of this spice crop have increased over the last three to four years, sustaining the interest of Adivasi coffee farmers. Interestingly, the pepper prices stand at ₹650 a kilogram as against the coffee’s ₹450. Several Farmers stated that pepper turned their prospects around as it yields around 150-200 kg an acre, assuring stable financial support.
Not only this, one of the farmers, from Pedabarada village, which is 110 km away from Visakhapatnam, is handling five acres of coffee and pepper, with an average annual income of ₹2 lakh per acre from coffee and an additional ₹60,000 each from black pepper cultivation.

Black pepper to get organic certification

Kalpana Kumari, Managing Director of Andhra Pradesh Girijan Cooperative Corporation (GCC), stated that black pepper would get the Organic Certification, and it is the second crop after coffee, adding that black pepper grows in the coffee plantations that are certified as organic, making it easy for black pepper on the same field to get the certification. Additionally, she said that this move of organic certification will help farmers to get higher prices for their cultivated black pepper.

Moreover, Thanga Srinivasa Rao, Senior Manager (Coffee) of GCC, has revealed that Tata Consumer Products Limited, which has agreed to purchase 10 tonnes of organic Araku Coffee from the GCC, has also shown interest in procuring black pepper and other products as soon as it receives the organic certification.