Chikkamagaluru: Holadagadde Girish, district secretary of the Coffee-growers’ Welfare Forum, in a statement to the media, has accused that some coffee-curing units were indulging in daylight robbery by creating circumstances that forced the growers to sell off their produce well before March every year.
Since the yield was lower this year, there was demand for coffee at the international level. The curing units had hoarded large stocks of produce for the sake of profiteering. When the prices rise from March first week onwards, the curing units retain the old prices.
“The growers, with a compulsion to settle bank outstandings by end of March, have to get their produce billed by then. The curers who have hoarded the coffee have paid 60% of the proceeds on interest basis. On the one hand, the prices are low and on the other hand, the interest amount keeps piling up. Using this as a weapon, the curers have been putting the growers in circumstances of getting the coffee billed within March,” Girish has said.
He has also warned of agitation if the curers fail to raise the prices set.
