GO

Yearly Average Price of RSS4 per 100Kg From ' 2005' to ' 2019'

 Kottayam

 Kochi

 Agartala

In ₹ In US$

RSS4 Price Change Price Chan

2005 6068.00 493.00 80.90

2006 8776.00 2708.00 117.00

2007 9006.00 230.00 120.10

2008 10767.00 1761.00 143.55

2009 9747.00 -1020.00 129.95

2010 16896.00 7149.00 225.30

2011 21669.00 4773.00 288.90

2012 18433.00 -3236.00 245.75

2013 16886.00 -1547.00 225.15

2014 13661.00 -3225.00 182.15

 In ₹ In US$

RSS4 Price Change Price Chan

2015 12142.00 -1519.00 161.90

2016 12242.00 100.00 163.20

2017 13650.00 1408.00 193.55

2018 12587.00 -1063.00 178.90

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SUBMIT

M G Radhakrishnan
June 19, 2006
ISSUE DATE: June 19, 2006 | UPDATED: February 16, 2012 16:25 IST

    

On the fast track: Josekutty Joseph has reaped his share of success

Josekutty Joseph, a 34-year-old resident of Palai in Kerala's Kottayam district, is on a spending spree
these days.

Having just added a gleaming new Honda CR-V to his existing fleet of three cars, he is expediting
the construction of a mall in Kochi and has enrolled his son in an elite kindergarten at the centrally
airconditioned Ebenezer International School in neighbouring Ettumanoor. The reason for his
splurge is simply the unprecedented boom in the price of natural rubber.

Galloping prices, both at home and abroad, have meant a windfall for more than a million rubber
farmers in Kerala which produces over 90 per cent of the country's natural rubber
farmers in Kerala, which produces over 90 per cent of the country s natural rubber.

In the past five years, the price of rubber has shot up from Rs 30 to Rs 110 a kg and the state's
rubber growers, 90 per cent of whom belong to the small and marginal category with less than 2
hectares of land each, earned about Rs 100 crore in the month of May alone.

If prices have galloped, so have production, consumption, export and productivity. This is in stark
contrast to the severe crisis faced by almost all other crops in the state, which drove more than 200
farmers to suicide last year.

At the headquarters of the Rubber Board in Kottayam, Kerala's rubber district, the bell never
ceases to ring in the newly-installed Interactive Voice Response System which provides the daily
domestic and international prices of rubber in Malayalam, Hindi and English. Joseph also runs a
home appliance shop that caters to Palai's dominant community of rubber farmers.

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"I have never seen these people with so much money. Even in a small town like Palai, they are
splurging. They are buying high-end products like LCD TVs. Sales of air-conditioners, microwave
ovens and mobile phones have trebled in the past three months. There are no takers for exchange
schemes as everyone is buying a second television set or vehicle," says Joseph. "Palai today looks
like a metro with an abundance of fancy cars in its narrow lanes."

Like so many other villages and towns in the state, Palai is now basking in a rubber-induced
opulence. The number of mobile phone shops has grown from three to 20 in the past two
years. The number of new motor vehicles registered every month has more than doubled to 500
from about 200 earlier. Land prices have skyrocketed from Rs 2 lakh per acre to Rs 6 lakh in the
past 24 months. And the price of rubber-cultivated lands has touched Rs 15 lakh per acre from
barely Rs 2 lakh two years ago.

"Prices may not stay at the same level, but the boom will continue."
SAJAN PETER, CHAIRMAN, RUBBER BOARD 
The boom has helped not just big and medium-scale farmers but has also been beneficial for small-
scale farmers. The monthly revenue from a single-acre rubber farm has crossed Rs 10,000,
compared to a cost of Rs 1,000. The daily wages of rubber tappers who extract latex (rubber milk)-
the basic material from the trees-have almost doubled from Rs 125 to Rs 250.

According to the 59th round of the National Sample Survey, Kerala records the country's highest
consumption expenditure rate, thanks to remittances from abroad. Now the rubber boom is sure
to take the state to far dizzier heights. "There has been a spurt in demand from the rubber regions.
We expect a 5 per cent growth in sales this year on account of the boom," says Kochi's Honda car
dealer Sreekuttan Sreekumar.

The rubber price rise is expected to further give a boost to the housing sector, which was already
growing at 30 per cent. "The demand for premium flats costing Rs 50 lakh and above has been on
the rise," says K. Srikanth of Skyline Foundations, the leading builders in Kerala.

Small towns and villages in the hilly Kottayam district as well as parts of other districts where rubber
is grown have never had it so good. Contrast this with the widespread gloom of 1998, when rubber
prices had crashed from Rs 52 per kg to Rs 28, at least Rs 2 lower than its cost of production.

This had induced people to sell off rubber farms at distress prices or switch to other crops like
vanilla. But prices started soaring in 2002-from Rs 37 per kg to Rs 50 next year and Rs 60 in 2005,
and crossed the magic figure of Rs 100 by May this year-to hover around Rs 125 by June for the
medium-grade rubber named RSS-IV (ribbed, smoked sheet). Best grades like RSS-IX fetch an even
higher price.

Rubber prices are high in international markets too, such as in Bangkok and Kuala Lampur. The
reasons are many: fall in production in the top three rubber-producing countries- Malaysia,
Indonesia and Thailand (India is fourth); high global economic growth, especially in China and India;
high sectoral growth in automobiles and tyre manufacturing and the rising cost of producing
synthetic rubber due to soaring oil prices. Global production of natural rubber last year was 83 lakh
tonne, while demand stood at 87 lakh tonne. High fuel prices have made synthetic rubber
expensive, which has forced rubber-based industries to opt for natural rubber. Story in
Audio

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And unlike 1998, when the boom had turned bust for rubber-growers, there are no fears of a crash
this time. "Prices may not stay at the same level because of increased production, but because of
the huge demand at home as well as in China, we expect the boom to continue," says Sajan Peter,
Chairman, Rubber Board.
 ,

True, millions of dollars are being spent in the West on finding a commercially viable alternative to
natural rubber. But until that happens, Kerala's onemillion-strong rubber growers will be laughing
all the way to the bank.

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