North East to be developed as new ‘spice destination’

Thiruvananthapuram: To tap North East states’ potential to emerge as a destination for cultivation of spices, the Spices Board has embarked on plans to promote farming of a wide range of produce that fetch great demand in domestic and global markets.
According to the Board, with Assam in the core location, Arunachal Pra-desh, Manipur, Nagaland, Tripura, Meghalaya and Mizoram are congenial grounds for commercial cultivation of spices retain-ing their unique generic properties.
Spice India, the official journal of Kochi-based Spices Board, said the rich land and the alluvial soil deposits along the Brahma-putra river basin and the tropical rain forests offer a splendid backdrop for organic farming.
“Given a support, these factors can contribute to-wards improving farm inco-mes, enhancing food and nutrition security, accele-rating the overall economic growth of the region and marketability of produce from NE” the journal said.
The project is expected to give a fillip to a variety of spices like Naga chillies, highly pungent bird’s eye chillies of Mizoram, high curcumin bearing Lakadong turmeric of Meghalaya, Himalayan ginger and large cardamom. Partnering with the state Horticulture Depa-rtment, as part of which an MoU has already been signed.  (PTI)