HE newsprint industry could come to the rescue of Kerala's embattled farmers who have been helplessly watching the prices of their cash crops plummet, according to a Union minister. Growing of pulpwood trees offers Kerala farmers a way out of their financial woes, V. Kathiria, the Union Minister of State for Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises, said here.
Pulpwood is the raw material for the manufacture of newsprint.
At present it gets just 40 percent from the farmers of Kerala. The rest comes from the government-run Bamboo Corporation and its own captive plantations. As of now they are all struggling with the falling price of cash crops. They could, with very little capital cost and yearly recurring expenditure, utilize their existing land for the cultivation of trees like eucalyptus, bamboo, acacia and cashurina. He said there is no problem in the growing of pulpwood trees as studies have proved that the level of the water table is sustained.