Odisha has been the major producer of many organic spices in Odisha and the following are some of the leading ones:
Turmeric:
While not many know that the Kandhamal district is where the world’s best organically grown turmeric is found and because of the increase in the favourable climatic conditions, there has been a huge growth of Turmeric in the last few years. More than 50 percent of over 600,000 people in the forested hill district, over 200 km from Bhubaneswar in the Eastern Indian state. According to the secretary of the Kandhamal Apex Spice Association for Marketing (KASAM), Pramod Patnaik: “Last year the district produced about 9,000 tonnes of turmeric. This year we hope the produce will be more than 10,000 tonnes.” Since it is a state tun society that represents the traditionally spice-growing indigenous organic farmers in the region involving 61 groups comprising of 12,000 members, the Turmeric cultivation starts in May-June and the harvesting is done between December and February.
Since the turmeric produced in Kandhamal has medicinal qualities and can be used for facial purposes, it has also been awarded the best international certification of organic quality. According to sources, the turmeric business in the district is worth Rs.300 million.
- Dried Chillies:
Dried red chillies are best cultivated at the Kandhamal district of Odisha that are perishable having over 70-80% of moisture content at the time of harvest but for safe storage the moisture should be 10%. It has been observed that women checked that the moisture content by breaking of chilli into pieces before storage. Fruits are harvested at a ripe stage and then dried for one week before they are soft and wrinkled. Women use local basket for drying chilli on an outdoor concrete floor. The chillies are turned every 1-2 hours between intervals to ensure consistent drying. In order to prevent excessive delay the earthen pots and plastic containers for their household consumption. The dried chillies are placed in the containers along with a pouch of fenugreek. The farmers cleaned and bagged 15-20 kg of chillies in gunny bags, plastic bags and kept in a clean dry store. Women also store chilli in powder and mix common salt for longer storage.
- Onion and Garlic:
Onion and garlic as the commodities that everyone needs everyday in the kitchen. For augmentin steady and continuous supply to domestic as well as overseas marketing their storage is highly essential. The storage of these commodities is a function of the genotype, cultural practices and storage conditions. Every year about 55-60 lakh tonnes of onion are produced in the country out of that 10-12 lakh tonnes is wasted during handling, storage and marketing. Over the last 30 years of research, technologies have been developed in terms of varieties, production, plant protection and storages by various institutes.
- Coriander:
While the coriander is dried in the sunlight for a 3-4 hours and store in the form of powder in a plastic container with a small piece of 5-10 gm asafoetida in the top layer. The strong or pungent flavour and insecticidal and antimicrobial properties of asafoetida prevents spices from insect pests.
Conclusion:
India is the acknowledged leader in the world of spices and produces more than 45% of the world’s spices in terms of volume but the storage losses are very high. At the micro-level, these losses may represent increase in the marketing cost of the product and at the macro level to reduce the per capita availability. There is a need to reduce these losses to feed the ever growing population. Ginger and turmeric are stored in pit method, heap method and in situ method while chilli, onion and garlic are stored in a mesh bags and hanging method. Storage losses were recorded 10- 15% in ginger, 20- 30% in turmeric, 10- 15% in onion and garlic in traditional method of storage which were less as compared to who has not adopted storage practices. To check these losses popularization and encouragement for low cost, eco- friendly and effective storage technologies and methods among the end users are the need of hour. The indigenous technical knowledge acquired by the farmers need to be tested and refined with the modern techniques. This will further help the farmers to enhance their capacity building especially in the trade sector. There is a scope of integrating traditional knowledge with modern scientific knowledge for developing appropriate technologies which will be a highly beneficial to the people living in the rural areas especially in the Agriculture sector.
