Eight coconut plucking machines vie for final round

September 28th, 2010 - 8:42 pm ICT by IANS  

Thiruvananthapuram, Sep 28 (IANS) A competition to develop a coconut plucking machine and win Rs.1 million has reached the second round with eight people ready with their fabricated machines.
A Kerala government statement said that the machines were selected from 109 applicants. Each winner was given Rs.1 lakh to pursue their research.

“An expert committee will evaluate the machines and select the best three models for commercial production,” said the statement.

There is a serious shortage of professional coconut tree climbers who pluck out ripe coconuts. This needs to be done once every 45 days.

Kerala’s annual production of coconuts has seen a major fall — in both area under cultivation and production.

This comes at a time when the area under coconut cultivation in Tamil Nadu and Karnataka put together increased from 29 percent ( 1993) to 40 percent (2007).

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