The Hindu Business Line : High vanilla prices may take the flavour out of trade

THE high prices of vanilla in the domestic and international markets may not augur well for the crop in the future as it may lead to manipulations in the trade.

The current price trend might compel the sectors, which are currently using natural vanillin, to switch back to the synthetic product leaving only those segments now under compulsion to buy the natural vanillin.

This would result in decline in demand, Mr C.J. Jose, Chairman, Spices Board, told Business Line. Besides, he said, there could be manipulations such as importing inferior vanillin and re-exporting it either after mixing with Indian vanillin or as an Indian product. This would tarnish our credibility, he added.

"This is the time that we should develop our image as the best quality vanilla supplier. We have to create a separate identity based on quality," Mr Jose said. It has been observed that the Indian vanilla has high recovery percentage and good flavour compared to other origins.

Recovery rate of Indian vanilla was 2.5 per cent to 3 per cent against 2 per cent from other origins, such as Madagascar and Indonesia, Mr Jose said. From one kg cured vanilla 30 gm of vanillin could be extracted, he said. Indonesian vanilla is inferior in the international market, and, hence commands only one-third of the price. As a result everybody in the international vanilla trade was in India, he said.

Given the growing demand for natural vanillin in the international market, and India currently exports only cured vanilla, the Spices Board is assisting a South Indian entrepreneur to set up a vanillin extraction unit on the Kerala - Tamil Nadu border as a joint venture with a European vanilla processor.

The unit would be using super-critical extraction methods lest there would be contamination from solvents, Mr Jose said. The unit involving an estimated investment of Rs 6 crore-Rs 7 crore would start with extraction of 500 kg of vanillin. For extracting this quantity of vanillin, there would be a requirement of 1.25 lakh tonnes of green beans.

As part of the Board's efforts to diversity, it is working on increasing acreage in vanilla. With its support already 3,700 hectares have been brought under the crop, and, of this 1,000 ha had started yielding. The target for the current plan was 5,000 ha, Mr Jose said.

The plan is to spread it throughout the country where the agro-climatic conditions are suitable. At present, it is concentrated in Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka and Arunachal Pradesh in the North-East. Arrangements have been made with The Engineering Research Institute (TERI) for supplying of tissue-cultured vanilla plants to the Arunachal Pradesh region, Mr Jose said. The institute had been asked to supply five lakh plants, which would cover about 500 ha, he said.

For the southern States and other areas the Board had its own tissue culture unit here and the capacity of which had been enhanced to eight lakh plants per year. Besides, farmers groups were being assisted to multiply rooted cuttings. It was expected to have 15 lakh of planting material with the Board's support and that could cover 1,200 hectare to 1,500 hectare, he said.

The total Indian production of beans, at present, is estimated at 100 tonnes against the world production of 5,583 tonnes in 2001 from a total area of 40,846 ha.