Political Economy of Natural Rubber Cultivation in Tripura

Natural Rubber (NR) has emerged as a lucky crop in the international market by early 2003 and continued till 2012 (Fox and Castella 2013). India is the fourth largest producer of NR in the world (2012-13) with a share of 8.11%. NR cultivation is traditionally confined to the hinterlands of southwest coast, viz., Kerala state and Kanyakumari district of Tamil Nadu. As traditional NR growing region has saturated, NR cultivation has been vigorously extended to agro-climatically marginal lands for NR in the north eastern states. Tripura, the land locked state in the north-east, is one such marginal land for NR where NR cultivation has been fast expanding in India particularly since the mid 1990s.The relative profitability of NR has attracted land, labour and capital to NR cultivation from other crops, particularly rice in Tripura.