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Corporate
investments encouraged in Sri Lanka’s spice industry The industry is also working on a programme to obtain protection for “Ceylon Cinnamon” through a certification mark registration under the Intellectual Property Rights law both locally and in the major markets, he told the spice conference organized by The Spice Council. This is to be done in collaboration with the National Intellectual Property Office of Sri Lanka, the Export Development Board, Department of Export Agriculture, Sri Lanka Standards Institution and The Competitiveness Program (TCP) of USAID. “The industry is also seeking protection under geographical indications for Ceylon Cinnamon under the TRIPS agreement of the WTO.” The world market for imported spices and culinary herbs is valued at just over US$ 2.3 billion, with India accounting for 30 percent of exports, said Derryck Cox, former chairman of American Spice Traders Association International Group. The US market alone imported 232,861 tonnes of spices in 2002 with a total value of $513 million. De Silva said Cox will select 5-6 spice firms for a programme to enter the US market and TCP plans to arrange meetings with leading spice importers and processor there. The Spice Council with the assistance of TCP is working on a project to develop model villages of Good Agricultural Practices and Good Manufacturing Practices in all major spice producing districts. The first village which will be developed is Thibbatukanatta in Matale District starting next year. It
is intended to provide farmers with quality preserving post harvest
processing equipments to get the maximum benefits from the spice
cultivation. Dr. Palitha Wickramasinghe, director of Sri Lanka’s Department of Export Agriculture told the conference that the island’s spice industry suffers from a number of structural problems. “About a quarter of spice cultivations are old and have reached senile stages,” he said. A majority of the spice holdings is in the stage of a plateau where yields are stagnant. “About 25 percent of holdings are in the yield declining stage and this is a point for concern in view of maintaining a stable production in the spice sector,” Wickramasinghe said. “The productivity of such holdings may decline further and therefore rehabilitation of such holdings becomes an important strategy for the sector development.” A larger proportion of the production base consists of low yielding varieties while the agriculture sector in general is facing a scarcity of labour, which results in disproportionate increases in the cost of labour. The second important issue is the small size of spice cultivations with almost all the holdings being less than two hectares in size. Wickramasinghe said the department is working on development of tissue culture technique for large scale multiplication of cardamom and that it has identified three cardamom cultivars having yield potential of over 700 kg/hectare/year. The spice conference was held at the same time as the World Spice Festival which featured Sri Lanka’s famous spices. The eight-day festival, organised by the Sri Lanka Tourist Board (SLTB), was held at Colombo’s leading hotels and restaurants along with a ‘Spice Bazaar’ and a ‘Chai’ tea-based recipe competition for participating hotels and restaurants, sponsored by Dilmah. The food promotions featured unique dishes created by top guest chefs from around the world. The dishes drew on both a fusion of Sri Lankan spices and the signature spices of the countries or regions represented at the festival including Thailand, Indonesia, Africa, China, Australia, India and Malaysia. |
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