Rubber cultivation in India

Rubber cultivation in India

Subject: Geography

Section: Economic Geography

Context: A plan by the Rubber Board to develop rubber plantations in an area of two lakh hectares across the seven northeastern States in a span of five years starting from 2021-22 has unleashed pent-up demand among the rubber nurseries in the State

Concept:

Rubber Plant:

• Many plant species produce natural rubber. Considerations of quality and economics, however, limit the   source of natural rubber to one species, namely Hevea brasiliensis.
• It is a native of the Amazon basin and introduced from there to countries in the tropical belts of Asia and Africa during late 19th century. It can be termed as the most far reaching and successful of introductions in plant history resulting in plantations over 9.3 million hectares, 95 per cent of it across the globe in Asia.
• Hevea brasiliensis, also known as the Para rubber tree after the Brazilian port of Para, is a quick growing, fairly sturdy, perennial tree of a height of 25 to 30 metres. It has a straight trunk and thick, somewhat soft, light brownish grey bark.
• The rubber tree may live for a hundred years or even more. But its economic life period in plantations, on general considerations is, only around 32 years – 7 years of immature phase and 25 years of productive phase.
• Commercial cultivation of rubber in India was started in 1902.

Rubber Growing Regions

The rubber growing regions in India can be classified under two major zones, traditional and non- traditional on the basis of agro-climatic conditions.

Traditional Regions

Rubber cultivation in India has been traditionally confined to the hinterlands of the southwest coast, mainly in Kanyakumari District of Tamil Nadu and Kerala

Non-traditional Regions

These are hinterlands of coastal Karnataka, Goa, Konkan Region of Maharashtra, hinterlands of coastal Andhra Pradesh and Orissa, the northeastern states, Andaman and Nicobar Islands etc, where rubber is now being grown.

Geographical conditions:

• Rubber is a tropical tree.
• It requires high temperature throughout the year – ranging between 20°-35°C or average monthly mean of 27°C.
  • Less than 20°C temperature is detrimental.
• Rubber also requires heavy rainfall.
  • The annual average rainfall of not less than 200 cm is optimum. Rubber tree thrives well when the distribution of rainfall is uniformly high all over the year.
• Deep, friable, well-drained soils are ideal as they promote root devel­opment, and acidic soils are also suitable.
• Thailand is the highest rubber producer in the world, which produced 31.29 per cent of world production. Indonesia is the second largest producer.
• In the world production of natural rubber, India ranks Fourth.
  • Traditional rubber-growing states comprising Kerala and Tamil Nadu account for 81% of production.