Sunday, March 24, 2013

COIR FIBRE

Coir is the fibre extracted from the fibrous outer covering of the fruit of the coconut palm, botanically known as Cocos nucifera (Linn) and is a native of the tropics. Botanists are of varying opinions regarding the origin of this tree. Whilst this crop is considered to be of pre-historic origin in the Philippine Islands, its known cultivation dates back to 300 BC in Sri Lanka and available evidence also confirms its existence in India 3,000 years ago. Coconut is one of the mostimportant sources of vegetable oil in the world as its kernel contains up to 60% oil.The spinning of coir yarn from coir fibre was practised several centuries agobut the industrial manufacture of coir products developed in the middle of the 19th century. James Darrah, an Irish-born American entrepreneur who came to India in 1850, set up a factory in Alleppey in 1859 and this marked thebeginning of the organised world coir industry. This factory grew to become a very large firm under the name Darrah Smail & Co. and was of considerable renown in Alleppey. Within fifteen to twenty years of Darrah Smail & Co.'s establishment more than a dozen other such factories were set up in the town, most of these managed and owned by Europeans. After India gained independence in 1947 most of the coir factories were either closed down or handed over to Indian nationals. From the centralised production system that prevailed up to that time production began slowly to migrate to the suburbs and grow as a cottage industry. Thousands of small-scale coir product manufacturing units were gradually set up within a few kilometres of the town of Alleppey. The products manufactured by these small units were bought in semi-finished condition by exporters, were further processed under their supervision and then exported after value addition. Recently some exporters have begun to set up large-scale manufacturing units of their own as centralised production has been found to help ensure better-quality products.