The Hindu Business Line : UPASI to get Spices Board's support for growing spices

THE Spices Board will provide assistance to the United Planters' Association of Southern India (UPASI) in identifying spices that can be grown as intercrop in the tea and coffee plantations at higher elevations.

The board has suggested trying of herbal spices such as rosemary, thyme, sage, marjoram, cinnamon and nutmeg in demonstration plots in the plantations on experimental basis.

Vanilla is already grown in the plantations. However, for assistance on its curing, detailed discussions have to be held. The board would be able to provide planting materials and assist in package of practices. Planting materials of herbal spices would be made available at subsidised prices from the Udhagamandalam-based NGO, Health of People and Environment, which is doing multiplication of planting materials with the board's subsidy support.

Cinnamon planting materials could be procured from the Indian Institute of Spices Research, Kozhikode, a senior Spices Board official said.

According to him, cinnamon could be tried out at elevations ranging between 1,200 and 2,000 feet above sea level. Nutmeg is a potential crop but the yield is likely to be less than that in the plains. Herbal spices would be tried, he said. Already in one of the estates in Chickmagalur in Karnataka, it is being tried out in a demonstration plot. Based on the outcome of this trial it would be extended to other areas for commercial production. These spices could be cultivated in the spare land available in the tea and coffee plantations, he said, adding that more detailed discussions would be held later with the officials of the board and its research establishments.

The discussions were also aimed at identifying disease and drought-resistant spice crops. The UPASI Spices committee had requested the board for providing suitable proposals for implementing the cultivation. Already cardamom and pepper are grown in plantations, the board official said.

He said UPASI could take up cultivation of suitable spices with the board's technical support and guidance. Ever since the sharp decline in tea prices, the plantation industry has been exploring the possibility of cultivating medicinal plants, spices, vanilla and bamboo as intercrop. According to planters, "these crops grown along with the current plantation crops can not only give employment but also support the existing plantation crops."

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