Spices Park - The Concept Plan

Spices Park - The Concept Plan

Background

Spices Board of India is the statutory commodity Board under Ministry of Commerce & Industry and responsible for the export promotion activities of Spices and Spice product. India is the largest producer, consumer and exporter of spices in the world. India produces more than 65 spices in different varieties out of the 109 Spices listed by ISO. India has a significant share of 48% in quantity and 43% in value of the world trade in spices.

In the quality front, the major consuming countries like Europe and USA are demanding more and more quality compliance by the producing countries. It is pertinent to note that India was able to cope up with the new stringent quality stipulations setup by these consuming countries and sustain and increase our export share in these markets with various quality improvement programmes initiated by the Board. But the recent trends among these countries in quality stipulations will definitely go further and only those suppliers who can meet the aspirations of the consumers could be able to survive in future. To meet this challenge we have to equip ourselves to produce and market the spices, which will have internationally accepted food safety standards.

What is Spices Park?

A Spices Park can be defined as an industrial park for processing and value addition of Spices and Spice products which offers the processing facilities at par with the international standards. The Regional crop specific Spices Park is a well-conceived approach to have an integrated operation for cultivation, post harvesting, processing for value addition, packaging, storage and exports of spices and spice products by meeting the quality specifications of the consuming countries.

Facilities at Spices Parks

The basic objective of the concept is to provide common infrastructure facilities for both post-harvest and processing operations of spices and spice products, which also aims at backward integration by providing rural employment. All the Spices Park will have processing facilities at par with international standards in which the produces could undergo cleaning, grading, sorting, grinding, packing, warehousing etc. Apart from the above facilities, the Board will develop the common infrastructure facilities like Roads, Water supply system, Power stations, Firefighting & Control systems, Weighing bridges, effluent Treatment Plants, Quality Lab for checking basic parameters, Bank & Post office counters, Restaurant, Business centers, Guest house etc.

Spices Park will also render educative services to the farming/trading community. It provides training programmes on Good Agricultural Practices (GAP), post-harvest operations, advanced processing practices and global food safety and quality standards and issues etc. Establishment of Spices Park in the country is a major initiative of the Government as part of its commitment that any growth in the country should be more of agriculture-specific and pro-farmers. The Spice Park will ensure a better pricing for the produce by shortening the channels in the supply chain system currently followed locally. The common processing facilities available in the Spice Park can be utilized by the farming community for primary processing for improving the quality of their product and thereby they can directly sell to the exporters.

Public Private Participation

Under the concept of the Spices Park, the Board will allot the land available in the Park to prospective private entrepreneurs for developing their own processing units for value addition and higher end processing. The land will be allotted for a period of 30 years initially and it can be extended on mutually agreed conditions. The Private entrepreneurs will develop their processing units by availing the common facilities in the Spices Park. The grower community can make use of these facilities for selling their produce directly to the exporters so that they can avail the premium price for their produces. On the other side the exporters can develop a link with reliable farming community for an uninterrupted supply of farm fresh raw material for their business.

Locations of establishment of Spices parks in the country

The Board has established/establishingcrop specific Spices Parks in the major producing/market centers. The location of the Spice Parks currently established/under establishment are given below