Spices of Islands: Potentials and way forward for profitability

Abstract

Spices have played a very important role in shaping the history of human culture and civilization. Spices, condiments and aromatics were the first products to be traded by the ancient people. Spices are important high value commodities traded internationally for many centuries. Spices are low volume, high value, export oriented crops. The Andaman and Nicobar Islands which is known as hot spot of biodiversity, is bestowed with congenial climatic conditions for cultivation of different kinds of spice crops. Most spices are well adapted to grow under shaded conditions and hence integration of spices in the existing coconut and arecanut plantations is one of the viable option for increasing the area and production of spices in the Island. The Andaman and Nicobar islands have emerged as a popular tourist destination and there is a high demand for high quality spices. The consumer preference is more towards organic spices and hence there is a lot of scope for increasing the area under spices and branding the spice products as organic since there is a minimal or no usage of chemical fertilizers and plant protection chemicals in the Island for production of spices. The major constraints faced by the farmers for spices cultivation were the non availability of quality planting material of spice crops and lack of awareness of recent developments in spices production technologies. ICAR-CIARI with the aid of the centrally sponsored scheme funded by Directorate of Arecanut and Spices Development Board (DASD) is involved in quality planting material production of spice crops and their distribution to farmers in different parts of the Island. Various training programmes, workshops and seminars are regularly conducted at village, district and state level to increase the awareness among the farmers about the improved technological developments in spices production. ICAR-CIARI is also constantly involved in conducting front line demonstration programmes of black pepper, ginger and turmeric to farmers in different parts of the Island. Many farmers in the Andaman group of Islands are successful in organic cultivation of ginger and turmeric and their success stories have been documented.