CHENNAI (Commodity Online): The long-standing debate of whether alcohol improves or destroys your health still remains intact. Connoisseurs drink it as a heart booster and ends up blocking their heart.

Next question is whether Toddy is a healthy drink? Tamil Nadu Toddy Movement and a host of coconut farmers believe it is and has asked the state government to declare so.

Toddy has a two-decade-old ban in the state where tapping is an offence. Kerala, on the other hand, do not have this prohibition but both states are witness to a series of hooch tragedies in the past many years.

So much so that the farmers have threatened to stall World Tamil Classical Conference scheduled from June 23, if the government do not revoke this ban. Coconut farming, they claim, is on the wane because of this unwarranted ban.

A hunger fast is on at Coimbatore by the leaders of the movement who claim that the government is more interested to promote IMFL while completely ignoring the farmers who are into coconut farming.

Already coconut farms have given way to commercial construction and housing plots and a falling price trend of coconut has not helpe the farmers to turn coconut farming into full time profession.

According to Kerala Planning Board, Kerala produces around 43 percent of the total cultivation while Tamil Nadu and Karnataka accounts 41 per cent of the total coconut production of 14,744 million nuts a year.

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