Constraints of coffee production in Nagaland, India

Abstract

In recent years, it has been observed that coffee cultivation has gained a particularly healthy popularity among farmers of Nagaland state. Therefore, a study was conducted in Nagaland to understand the major constraints faced by coffee farmers and stakeholders in the production technology, farm management and marketing of coffee in the state. The study was conducted in 4 districts i.e., Kohima, Mokokchung,Niuland and Wokha and a total of 6 RD blocks namely Kohima, Niuland, Sanis, Wokha, Mangkolemba And Ongpangkong (South) was selected purposively from the 4 selected districts as per the availability of maximum number of farmers actively engaged in coffee cultivation. A total of 8 villages (Touphema, Nerhema, Khar, Khensa, Lakhuti , Wokha, Hovishe, Ghotovi) were selected from the selected blocks. From the 8 villages total 110 coffee farmers were purposively selected based on the availability and 10 stakeholders were identified and selected using snowball sampling method making the sample size to a total of 120 respondents. With regard to coffee production technology constraints, Majority of the coffee farmers faced constraints on post harvest management. In the farm management constraints, it was studied in terms of ‘Planning’: there was no proper farm planning with majority of the coffee farmers having no idea about preparation of action plan. The major constraint in ‘Organizing’ were inability to manage workers, high labour cost etc. ‘Staffing’ constraint was mainly due to unavailability of skilled and unskilled labour. Transportation and shipment hampered ‘Leading’ and ‘Controlling’. Marketing constraints were lack of knowledge on grading technique, value addition, market intelligence and difficulty in export. The stakeholders’ constraints on resources were lack of finance and skilled manpower; Technical input constraint included lack of technical expert guidance; Market constraints were mainly on the delay in delivery of consignments hampering the flavour quality.