Tamil Nadu farmers grow chocolates on trees

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S.Dhanapal in Pattukottai grows chocolates on trees. Thanks to a MoU between the chocolate major Cadbury and the Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, this 41-year-old economics graduate has made Rs 61,000 just these past six months selling high-grade cocoa beans he had grown as an intercrop under the coconut trees in his eight-acre groove.

There are about 200 farmers like him earning good money growing cocoa between their coconut trees and earning as much as Rs 140 per kilo.

Beaming with joy, Dhanapal says he is thrilled becoming a model cocoa farmer in the district.
“I get so many visitors wanting to know about cocoa.

I tell them this is an easy crop as cocoa does not need much time and attention. The beans grow amid my tall coconut trees. There is definite profit”, he told DC.

Earlier, Dhanapal grew groundnut and urd dhal but could not make profits because groundnut and dhal did not thrive under the shade of the tall coconut trees.

“I also had problems getting paid for the produce as the intermediaries and brokers pocketed half of my profits as their commission. Now I send bags of ripe beans in a bus and my profits are credited to my bank account within a week,” he said.

The TNAU is happy with the quality of the beans. “Cadbury wants to extend the MoU for five more years”, said P.Paramaguru, head of the department of spices and plantation crops, TNAU.

He is confident more farmers would turn to cocoa. With a little over 15000 hectares bearing the beans, Tamil Nadu now stands third in coco production after Kerala and Andhra Pradesh.

Researcher M.Kavitha of the government coconut research station in Veppankulam in Thanjavur district told DC that she got many farmers to choose cocoa as a coconut intercrop.

“Coco and coconut grow well together. Pollachi was the only place where cocoa cultivation was popular in the early 1980s.

Now it has spread across Salem and Thanjavur districts as well. We allay the fears of farmers who think cocoa is a foreign crop”, she said.

Interested in turning a cocoa farmer? Call Kavitha’s office at 04375 260 205.