The Central Arecanut and Cocoa Marketing and Processing Cooperative (CAMPCO) will soon resume distribution of cocoa saplings to farmers, reports Hindu.
Last September saw the change of the guard at the chocolate producing cooperative Central Arecanut and Cocoa Marketing and Processing (CAMPCO). Konkodi Padmanabha who was President of the Campco for more than 5 years had made way for S.R. Satishchandra.
Cooperative sources are quoted saying, one lakh saplings will be distributed this year. Earlier the cooperative had stopped distributing sapling as the Department of Horticulture was promoting cocoa cultivation under its own cluster development programme.
The saplings would be distributed at 50 per cent subsidized rate. The saplings to be distributed by CAMPCO would start yielding in three years.
The cooperative owns a chocolate factory at Puttur in the district making it the only farmers’ cooperative to own such a chocolate factory in the state with a production capacity of 17,000 tonnes a year.