NEW DELHI: India’s aspiration to become a global turmeric production hub in the next five years may soon face a reality challenge. Despite being the world leader in turmeric production, productivity efficiency has significantly reduced in the past decade. In the meantime, new players like Fiji, Netherlands and Germany are fast catching up with the quality production of turmeric with high content of curcumin has reduced the share of India. Further, India has also become the second largest importer of niche turmeric after the USA.A new report, ‘Making India the Global Hub for Turmeric’, by the Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations (ICRIER) and Amway, released by NITI Ayog member Ramesh Chand, underlined the current challenges in turmeric production and the challenges before the sustainability of India’s ayurvedic medicinal system’s ‘yellow gold’. India is the largest producer, consumer, and exporter of turmeric, accounting for 70% of the world’s production. But for a long time, Indian farmers and policymakers were not very aware of the importance of curcumin content. The majority of Indian turmeric content has 2% curcumin content. Also, rampant pesticides used by farmers to get turmeric are less preferred by offshore countries due to its high residual content. “India is importing because it needs to develop turmeric product with high curcumin quantity,” said Arpita Mukherjee, lead author of the report. Further, she said India has now started focussing on developing products.
Source link
