Buried Under Landslides, Coorg바카라�s Coffee Planters Peer Into Oblivion

A fully-done crossword puzzle is on the table next to Chitra Subbaiah who confesses that she could forego reading the newspaper, but not the crossword. We are in the cottage of a home-stay in Madapura, north Coorg, resplendent in the evening sun바카라�the first day in two months that the rain has let up. It brings some rel­ief from fear. Chitra, nearing eighty, rec­ounts a painful experience with great fortitude. 바카라�You have to do some mental jugglery, you know. You can바카라�t curse your fate.바카라� She바카라�s staying in a friend바카라�s cottage because her home, in the neighbouring village of Hattihole, now lies beneath a pile of earth which slid down the hillside, burying everything she owned.

바카라�Wiped out, totally. I don바카라�t have one pin. There is nothing to say there was a house,바카라� she tells Outlook. All she could reach out for in time were her spectacles, medicines and some gold the wor­kers from her coffee estate had ent­­r­­usted her with safekeeping. The workers바카라� quarters on her coffee estate too went down. Fortuna­tely, they had time to move out. She points to others in the same situation. 바카라�At least I can rent a house and stay. What about so many others, who have nothing,바카라� she asks.

Before the rains started this year, coffee planters in Coorg were talking of a good crop바카라�the plants were well rested after a lean year and went through the process of blossoming and forming fruits.

That settled, seasonal certainty is gone with the wind and merciless lashings of torrential rain. It rained heavily through July and August in this region of south Karnataka bordering Kerala. Then, in late August, came a series of punishing cascades of sodden earth. Now, there바카라�s a trail of ruin in these charming hills, where landslides have swept off whole villages, re-arranged estates and shattered its economy. With immediate rescue measures tapering off, one question hangs limply in the air: where do you start picking up the pieces?

바카라�I can바카라�t plant anything now on my land, that바카라�s for sure,바카라� says K.U. Erappa, standing in his camouflage gumboots in a relief camp inside Madikeri바카라�s old fort where, grouped with several families, he has been staying for days now. 바카라�All that바카라�s left of my coffee plants are just stalks,바카라� Erappa says. His ageing mother walks up to say, 바카라�We had a small house, but it was pretty.바카라� Their grief is palpable. Erappa owned a few acres of coffee and paddy in Mukkodlu, one of the hardest-hit places in north Coorg, in the vicinity of district capital Madikeri. Much of Coorg is remote, away from the main-travelled roads. Like others, Era­ppa has been going back to salvage what he could. His three children, like most kids from his village, have been sent away to a temporary residential facility in a school in Ponnampet town at the southern end of the district. 바카라�We never dreamt Coorg would come to this,바카라� says N. Bose Mandanna, a planter from Suntikoppa.

Right now, a full picture of the damage isn바카라�t available, though it is being estimated. Planters like Mandanna reckon that at least 5,000-7,000 acres have been wiped off in the landslides. For the plants still standing, there바카라�s the danger of wet feet and black rot바카라�water-­logging at the base of the plant that strangulates it, cau­sing leaves to fall off. 바카라�When leaves are lost, next year바카라�s crop is also lost,바카라� says Man­danna. Coorg, with about one lakh hectares in cultivation, accounts for close to 40 per cent of India바카라�s coffee production. The 2017-18 post-blossom estimate was 1,33,500 metric tonnes, most of which is exported, Italy being a top destination. To make matters worse, prices, say market watchers, have been at historic lows. Brazil is harvesting a good crop this year and so will Columbia and Vietnam.

바카라�International prices have gone (down) to levels last seen in 2006. We are getting a lot less now, if you factor in the inflation,바카라� says Ramesh Rajah, president of the Coffee Exporters Asso­ci­ation. Prices dep­end on the big three producers바카라�Brazil, Columbia and Vietnam바카라�which account for over 70 per cent of the global production. 바카라�Only if there are supply shocks in the big three will there be impact in international prices. India can lose one third or even half its production and the international market is not going to blink,바카라� says Rajah.

In the mid-nineties, Coorg coffee saw a boom when prices rose because of a supply shortage in Brazil whose production, apart from being vulnerable to frost, was considered inefficient then. The boom years lasted a decade until trends began to reverse. Owing to hilly terrain, Coorg can바카라�t mechanise the way Brazil did. So, it has been grappling with high labour costs. Nor can other crops be sown, as coffee plants need trees for shade. Many Kod­a­vas, as Coorg바카라�s natives are called, conc­ede the difficulty in maintaining pla­­­­n­­tations. The symptoms, many say, have been showing바카라�an ageing population, a you­nger generation that has been migrating to cities and bits of land being sold to meet expenses, the latter contributing to a soc­ial churn in the highlands. This devastating blow came on top of all this.

The future, many say, is bleak. First, the question of land lost, by no means an easy task, given the complexities that involve verifying claims, boundaries and so on. 바카라�Let the government acquire the property. See the record, set­tle them,바카라� says planter Mittu Che­n­gappa, who바카라�s also a Karnataka Congress general secretary. His suggestion, that the government acquire private land ravaged by landslides for afforestation so that owners can begin afresh elsewhere, has been voiced by many. Unlike neighbouring Chikmagalur바카라�where coffee was first grown in India바카라�there are more small growers in Coorg, many owning only a few acres.

Even for those who didn바카라�t lose land, rep­lanting will be a big financial burden, says Rajah. Besides the upfront cost, it would mean a five-year wait for yields. 바카라�So, how will they sustain themselves for five years? What does he do about infrastructure within the farm, workers바카라� houses, his house?바카라� asks Rajah. Coffee planters have always weathered difficult years, but the destruction this year is unprecedented. 바카라�Some years, the crop yield is sharply lower because of lack of rain or excess rain. But this is the first time we have act­ually seen this sort of damage where infrastructure is damaged. It바카라�s going to be very difficult in the short term,바카라� reckons Rajah. In the long term, he says, every producing country is bleeding, so things can be pulled back to a degree by increasing efficiency. Of course, primary rehabilitation remains a priority; the process of replanting will take place slowly.

바카라�The other thing is the labourers are not coming back. We are still in a state of flux, a dilemma as to what바카라�s going to happen. There are a lot of issues, it바카라�s very fluid,바카라� says Nanda Belliappa, a coffee grower from Hattihole who has to now walk half a kilometre inside his property to reach his house, as the road leading to it is blocked. The Hatti, a stream outside his gate바카라�where once a Malayalam film was shot바카라�has beached fallen tree trunks ashore. 바카라�The neighbours바카라� coffee plants and trees are on our road...it바카라�s unbelievable,바카라� says his wife Anitha. In villages in these parts, the conversations go from rain to earthqu­ake바카라�many planters say they heard loud booms and felt tremors, but officials say no seismic event was captured.

Bose Mandanna too says he won바카라�t be so pessimistic as to say that the coffee ind­ustry won바카라�t claw back. But he바카라�s doubtful about the prospects of a full recovery in North Coorg. 바카라�This area cannot come back in a hurry,바카라� he says. Last weekend, as the evening drew on, Madikeri wore a deserted look바카라�tourism has stalled and hotels are ordered not to take in travellers for some time. 바카라�Every night, there바카라�s fear that the hill will come down on your head,바카라� says Mandanna. The Kodava harvest festival Kailpodh, when they worship their guns, went by this week. Says Mandanna, 바카라�Nobody was interested in the festival. Coorg has become like a funeral parlour.바카라�

By Ajay Sukumaran in Coorg