Case Study 1

Name:
Mr. K.B. Krishna Gowda
Age:
50 years
Occupation:
Coffee farmer, Balgodu Village, Belur Taluk, Karnataka State, India

Married to Mrs. M. P. Swetha. Blessed with one son and three daughters. All the children are studying. Standard nine to College level.

(Click to enlarge)
Courtesy of Dr. Anand
Pereira.“I am the owner of 10 hectares of coffee and 3 hectares of wetland (rice). The property that was given to me is ancestral property. I inherited this property in the year 1980 from my late father K.G. Basappa. My mother aged 83 years lives with me. The farm had no infrastructure in terms of equipment and machinery when I took over. In fact, there was no necessity for sprinklers because the weather Gods were very kind and we had timely rains. Out of 10 hectares, Arabica coffee is grown in 5 hectares and Robusta coffee in 5 hectares. Apart from this I own 10 cattle head.

(Click to enlarge)
Courtesy of Dr. Anand
Pereira.All these years except for the last 4 years (2001-2002, 2002-2003, 2003-2004, 2004-2005 ) our family was living a decent life and we were very happy to be a part of nature. Nature never let us down. We were picking average crops of almost half a ton of dry Arabica and three fourth ton of dry Robusta whole crop cherry.

(Click to enlarge)
Courtesy of Dr. Anand
Pereira.During the coffee boom period, we invested wisely in drying yards, pulpers and sprinkling equipment. Infact, we spent a fortune educating our children in cosmopolitan towns. Previous to the boom period we had no loans and were a contended lot. However, during the boom period the bank officials enticed me into taking heavy loans for the up gradation of farm machinery and drying yards. Little did I realize that a coffee tsunami was waiting for us? My loans are not repaid and the interest burden is accumulating and almost 60% market value of my property is lost. Pest and disease incidence has played havoc on my farm and it is only my rice fields which are giving me food to eat. I cannot afford to give urban education to my children. In fact, I have pulled out 2 of my children from cosmopolitan towns and am now sending them to rural schools where they need to walk miles to catch a bus to attend college. We have stopped sending them to excursions and buying new clothes is out of the question. Our family has sleepless nights and I cannot come down from a life style that I have already been used to. My mother aged 83 years is alive and remembers all the past events in the history of the coffee industry. She simply states that she has never seen such misery spread across the length and breadth of the coffee mountain. In the good old days there was no doubt a slump in prices, but allied crops like pepper, citrus, cardamom and areca nut fetched a decent price and we could some how carry on with our daily living. But today the prices of all agricultural commodities have drastically come down and we have no income. We cannot afford to employ people for carrying out the daily operations and the farm is slowly deteriorating.

I strongly feel that there is no future for both coffee and our children. We are being pressurized by our children to sell and migrate to towns where they can find some job. We sincerely hope the WTO will put coffee under the green box and give us a fair price for our produce.”

Credit: Thanks to Dr. Anand T Pereira and Geeta N Pereira for conducting this interview exclusively at the request of ThinkQuest Team 01639. The interview has been reprinted as provided and has not been edited or altered.

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