Giving a thrust to value-addition of spices, a spices processing and storage park with modern facilities was opened today at Puttadi in Kerala’s Idukki district, with special focus on cardamom and pepper.

The park, set up at a 7.5 acres campus at a cost of Rs 27 crore by the Spices Board, was inaugurated by the Kerala Opposition leader, Mr Oommen Chandy.

Besides world class storage houses, the park has other required facilities such as laboratories, electronic auction centre and cleaning and grading plants for pepper and cardamom, two crops mainly grown in the area.

In his address, Mr Chandy wanted the Centre and the State governments to work out a mechanism to ensure the security of farmers when they faced adverse situations like price crash or crop fall. He said increasing the productivity of spices grown in Kerala was the one that required urgent attention.

Similarly, organic farming should be promoted in view of growing international demand for products grown without using chemical fertilisers and pesticides, he said.

The facilities at the park included raw material and finished goods storehouses, black pepper processing plant, white pepper production unit, laboratory for testing physical parameters and electronic auction system with 60 terminals.

It also has cardamom cleaning and grading plant, cardamom colour sorting machines, pepper cleaning, de-stoning and grading plant, pepper crushing and powdering plant, pepper packing unit and steam sterilisation unit.

Lok Sabha member from Idukki, Mr P T Thomas and Spices Board Chairman Mr V J Kurien also spoke on the occasion. .

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