Delivering and taking the heat : Indian spices and evolving product and process standards
Jaffee, Steven
India is the world's largest producer and consumer of spices and for a very long time has been among the leading spice exporting countries. Upwards of three million Indian smallholder households produce spices and hundreds of thousands of others are involved in spice processing, distribution and trade. India is unique among the world's major spice exporting countries in that the bulk of its spice production is used in the domestic market. Over an extended period, the Indian spice trade earned a reputation for product quality and marketing service. Challenges remain, however. At the commercial level, India has been encountering intensified competition in the world market for bulk spices. Its ability to compete-on a cost basis-is constrained by the relative dynamism of its own domestic market. As a result, increasingly, India's spice export trade is shifting to a range of spice oils, dehydrated products, and oleoresins for which the country maintains a major, if not dominant, world market position. Several exporters also are seeking to develop their brands and markets for packed consumer products. To increase competitiveness in these areas, effective use will have to be made of the installed technological capacities that have been put in place over the past decade, plus there is a need to intensify efforts to promote 'good agricultural practices' and improved post-harvest practices among spice growers and to more generally improve the oversight of spice procurement. Additional investments will be needed in technologies, systems, and human resources to improve spice hygiene and quality assurance. Furthermore, measures need to be taken to better apply and enforce regulations dealing with pesticides and domestic food safety. Given its spice industry's past track record, India is fully expected to meet these emerging commercial and regulatory challenges.
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