The price of fresh coconut shot up further this week in the market, while outstation traders claimed that businessman were still buying coconuts from them at low rates.
At Thursday's auction in Colombo, fresh coconuts went for over Rs 3,000 per thousand nuts, while the average auction price rose to Rs 33,006 per thousand nuts, up from 29,069 a week earlier.
Coconuts being skinned on an estate |
Market surveys revealed that the price of a coconut had gone up from Rs 25 (Rs 25,107 per 1000 nuts) to Rs 33 a nut last week, but this week, a coconut was being sold at Rs. 42 in some areas.
Notwithstanding that coconut production too has been on the decline.
Coconut production which was about 3,500 nuts for every 3 acres, today yields only around a thousand for a 45-day period.
Coconut producer Nimal Titus echoes the woes of the trade in the coconut triangle region of Puttalam, Kurunegala and Gampaha districts.
“Scarcity of rain and non availability of fertilizer are among the main reasons for the downside in production, while the drought in January next year will worsen the situation. These districts did not receive sufficient rain in the last three years. Added to this is the ‘mita’ menace, which even the CRI could not cope with”, he lamented.
A diseased nut |
One other reason is that many coconut growing lands have come under the hammer as real estate, where trees are chopped before surveying the land for sale. This is one of the main reasons for the rise in price today of over Rs 50 per nut.
But the price hike did not benefit the producer as the middlemen earned over Rs 20 per nut in the process. Ajith Prasanna a full time grower said that, he did not profit from the price hike, though the nut is sold between Rs 45 and 50, when the cost price is Rs 26.
R.D. Wimalawathie, a housewife, said that, for an average family of 5 that needs 2 nuts daily, the cost is high by their standards, and is a strain on the purse. Another said that, though prices are high, most nuts are tender and have no milk, hence no taste. Chairman, Coconut Board, said that the high price is seasonal and happens every year around August. The annual requirement is around 3,500 million nuts at the rate of 106 per person. He has inaugurated a scheme to sell 10 nuts per person at Rs 30, to help the consumer tide over the present impasse.
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