On December 21 last year, the Araku tribals set up a processing plant to produce their brand of organic coffee, 'Araku Emerald'. In less than three months, the brand's unique quality and aroma have won it customers in far away France, Norway and the UK. On Monday, a team from Tradecraft, UK, visited the coffee plantations while US-based coffee roasters Beans and Beans has evinced interest.

"The first export order of 1,000 boxes of organic coffee has been sent to Norway for an IT company. We will slowly build 'Araku Emerald' into an international brand," says Preeti Rao of NGO Naandi Foundation, which trained the tribals of Araku Valley to produce high-quality coffee as part of a sustainable livelihood programme.

Today, the poor tribals, who otherwise produced pulses and occassionally coffee, are making at least Rs 30,000 per acre.

The foundation helped the around 8,000 tribals of the valley organise themselves into the Small and Marginal Farmer Mutually-Aided Cooperative Society, with support from the Green Development Foundation of the Netherlands, and assisted them in setting up a coffee processing plant with machinery imported from the UK.

The Tribal Cooperative set up by the farmers happens to be the only cooperative in the country to have both fair trade and organic trade certification.

"Representatives of foreign companies coming here find it very exciting that these tribals living in the valley and still following their customs and traditions are producing high-quality organic coffee. They are surprised that the tribal cooperative also has fair trade and organic certification and they immediately want to do business with them," Rao says.

Situated 115 km from Visakhapatnam, the extremely scenic Araku Valley overlooking the Bay of Bengal is a favourite tourist and picnic spot. It is situated at a height of 900 metres above sea level in the Ananthgiri hills in Eastern Ghats, and has thick forests and rolling hills. It is accessible by both rail and road, with 45 tunnels on the road linking it to Vizag.

The thick forests of the valley are an ideal place for growing coffee as the tall silver oak trees provide the right shade and light for the plants.

Before the NGO stepped in, tribals used to actually cut the huge silver oaks to clear land for agriculture, leaving many hills bare. Now, apart from helping them monetarily, the coffee trade has also helped the tribals realise the importance of conserving the forests.

Unlike Karnataka and other coffee-growing states, Araku does not have huge private estates. "Instead, there are small holdings of one or two acres owned by tribal farmers," says Joint Director of Coffee Board M C Ponnanna. He says they are pitching in with technical assistance to the tribals, interacting with them and providing information to improvise.

Considering the potential and scope for development, the Indian Coffee Board and Integrated Tribal Development Agency have also stepped in. Both the agencies have pledged Rs 76 crore for coffee cultivation in the Araku region in the next five years. Union Minister for Commerce Jairam Ramesh has given Rs 1 crore from his MPLADS fund to set up two other coffee processing plants in nearby areas.

The Naandi Foundation and Coffee Board, which is working in four areas of Araku and Paderu at present, plan to take it to 11 other regions in the next six months.