TROUBLED TEAK

Farmers need to be sensitised about right planting materials and cultivation techniques to benefit from high-value teak plantations

- SANGRAM B CHAVAN AND A R UTHAPPA

TEAK HAS been the flagship species of plantation activities in India. In fact, teak cultivation has been linked to generating substantial income not only for large landowners but also for small and marginal farmers. The rush to set up teak plantation began after the National Forest Policy 1988 was formulated. The policy imposed a ban on the felling of green trees in government-owned forests and recommended meeting the timber demand from private lands. Soon, the prices of teak (Tectona grandis) logs, valued for a variety of commercial purposes including high-end furniture, soared by over 500 per cent.

To cash in on this opportunity, many nursery owners and private agencies came up with teak planting schemes. Records indicate that thousands of companies operated in the market to promote such schemes in India.

Companies promoted tissue culture saplings, claiming that they would earn three to five times more profit than the plants grown using traditional methods from seeds and stumps. Returns were assured in the shortest time span of eight to 12 years. Some companies sold teak saplings at ₹400 to ₹2,500 each and promised returns of ₹50,000 to ₹1,00,000 per tree after 20 years. Such advertisements attracted thousands of farmers to invest in teak plantations, particularly from the rural regions of Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Madhya Pradesh. States such as Madhya Pradesh rolled out plantation subsidies, prompting farmers to plant teak with high density. Some private nursery owners also passed off teak seedlings as tissue culture plants. Even today, in the name of tissue culture, seed originated teak saplings are being sold at ₹100-₹250 and are claimed to provide a yield of 1 cubic metre (m³) of timber per tree in eight to 12 years, at a density of 2,500- 4,000 trees per hectare.