Intervention by the Spices Board – through auctions and issuing price alerts to cultivators – has resulted in an over six-fold jump in prices of black cardamom (also called badi elaichi ) in Sikkim, over a five-year period.
Plans are now afoot to start e-auctions (of black cardamom) within the next six months, the Board said in a release. The hill-State of Sikkim accounts for 90 per cent of the country’s black cardamom production.
Currently, black cardamom is sold at around ₹1,600 a kg as against ₹250 a kg in 2010, through auctions facilitated by Spices Board every fortnight at the state’s market hub of Singtam – 30 km south of Gangtok.
The average quantity of black cardamom auctioned is 1.5 tonnes per auction. Nearly 50 per cent of the production in the State is sold in the process.
Price alerts “E-auctions should be on in another six months,” said A Jayathilak, Chairman of the Board. The Spices Board functions under the Union Ministry of Commerce & Industry, and Jayathilak was in Sikkim for the launch of the “Sikkim Organic” logo.
Since November 2015, the organisation has been making crop growers aware about prevailing prices (of black cardamom), thereby prompting many to avoid local middlemen. Middlemen are known to pay less than prevailing market prices.
“To ensure fast spread of price info among farmers, we text them the market price on all weekdays,” the Chairman said, adding that the Board has with it a database of over 500 growers of black cardamom.
Cascading effect The price rise has had a cascading effect, thereby benefiting the large-cardamom growers in other States in the North-East and Uttarakhand.
A buyer-seller meet (BSM) to facilitate Sikkim farmers to sell their products directly to the exporters and avoid middlemen, was also organised.
Over 40 spice farmers and 22 exporters/traders from across the country took part.