Notwithstanding the gloom in the natural rubber (NR) sector, James Jacob, Rubber Research Institute of India, Rubber Board, urged rubber planters to “keep calm and carry on”.
“The game is never lost for a planter – especially for the enduring, risk taking, adventurous ones,” he said and advised them to use this period to replant old areas with new promising clones, invest in new holdings, expand and take calculated risks.
Several factors are responsible for the present low price situation. First of all, there exists a close correlation between commodity prices and economic growth and the present cycle is different from the past in more ways than one. It has been steadily slipping for a long time now and the lean period set to last much longer this time.
He, however, conceded that several NR producing countries responded to low rubber prices by extending tax rebates, price subsidy, procurement by public agencies and so on, making Indian rubber growers less competent.
