Control pesticide, check adulteration of spice

New Delhi, Dec 24: Concerned over the country's sluggish spice trade, the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Commerce has suggested a slew of measures to help India recapture its prime position in the international market by controlling indiscriminate pesticide use and checking adulteration.

In its report on the ''Functioning of the Spices Board'', the panel has underlined the need to lay emphasis on intensive cultivation and improved practices of sowing, harvesting, grading and packaging on a par ''with international practices''.

To meet stringent environmental and health safety standards while exporting to developed nations which after result in rejection or ban of exporting items, it noted that indiscriminate use of pesticides had affected crop output besides creating environmental imbalance.

''The Government should ensure that indiscriminate use of chemicals, particularly the spurious chemicals, in the garb of pesticide application is controlled. Institutional arrangements should be made for free testing of produce for presence of pesticides,'' the members said and suggested slapping of strict penalties on suppliers of the spurious variety which would act as an effective deterrent.

The panel further asked the Government to curb the practice of adulteration of Indian spices. In this context, it said ''duty structure of the imported spices should be such that the prices of imported spices are not less than the domestic price of Indian spices.'' Regarding the slump in selling prices of several spices, the report suggested that these should be brought under the negative list whereby all such imports would require licence from the DGFT.

Foremost among its proposals were setting up of an umbrella Spices Development Authority and making it a focus area in the next Plan.

Noting that the benefits of the efforts undertaken by the Spices Board were not percolating to the ground level despite the involvement of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), the report found that the actual benefits were yet to reach the farmers in overcoming the problems from growing, protecting their crop, harvesting to post-harvest operations.

The panel further wanted that spice growers be put on e-commerce network and preparation of a road map by the Spices Board to accomplish this during the 11th Plan.

It favoured establishing an oversight mechanism to keep a tab on the international market scenario and adjust its export strategy suitably.

It could also have a system to advise spice growers about the changing scenarios in domestic and international markets so that optimum returns on their produce/investment could be realised.

Regarding the ''valauable opportunity'' of good demand for vanilla in the international market, it suggested that the Spices Board set in place a mechanism for tissue-cultured plantlets including NGOs in the mechanism with clear areas of responsibility.

However, it wanted a stringent criteria for the selection of NGOs and their financial credinility/background should be vetted before hand.

Apart from fixing the minimum support price for chillis, the Government could consider re-introducing market intervention through MARKFED and NAFED to help chilli farmers get a remunerative price through organising them into cooperatives/self-help groups so that they could protect their interests.

In the Northeast region, the panel recommended that due to poor response of farmers to the shceme for training them, the government should adopt a proactive approach by sending a number of farmers for training and providing training facilities in the region itself. In fact, setting up of a research institute in the North East should be considered to make available the latest technical knowhow on scientific cultivation and processing of spices to the growers within the region, it added.

UNI