Economic Scenario of Natural Rubber Production and Marketing in Kerala

Abstract

Kerala is the nearly monopolistic contributor to the natural rubber production of India with 90 % of the total production and 78 % of the area under cultivation in the country. The natural rubber production of the state during 2010-11 was 7.71 lakh tonnes and the coverage under the crop was 5.34 lakh ha. The productivity in Kerala was found to be less compared to the national average i.e., 1419 against 1784 kg/ha, during 2009-10. In Kerala, around 40 percent of the area, as well as 45 percent of the production of rubber, comes from three districts; Kottayam, Ernakulam, and Pathanamthitta, and small holders contributed 92.5 3% to the total production. Trend analysis using index numbers showed that over a period of the last 25 years, the area under rubber and its productivity increased to an extent of 46 percent and 135 percent respectively, and resulted in a 244 percent rise in NR production in Kerala. The instability in the area, production, and productivity during the period were 2.56, 5.84 and 6.37 percent respectively. The decomposition analysis showed that the yield effect is contributing nearly two-fold to the total production compared to the area effect. Ribbed Smoked Sheet (RSS), Latex Concentrates (LC), Technically Specified Rubber (TSR), Pale Latex Crepe (PLC), and Estate Brown Crepe (EBC) are important marketing forms of natural rubber. RSS is graded into six grades on the basis of its quality, i.e. RSS 1X, RSS 1, RSS 2, RSS 3, RSS 4, and RSS 5. Rubber marketing structure of the state consists of three separate sectors viz. individual sector, co-operative sector and corporate sector. Rubber mark, RUBCO, and RPSs are the three major players in the cooperative sector and their interventions in the market reduce the influence of middlemen ensuring more return to the producers