What is Spice Park? Spice Park in India.

Spices are an essential part of our day-to-day life from tea to daily vegetables at home and in hotels we consume them. Spice Park is established by the spice board of India. Spices Board of India is the statutory commodity Board under the Ministry of Commerce & Industry and is responsible for the export promotion activities of Spices and Spice products. India is the largest producer, consumer, and exporter of spices in the world. We use spices in all food products we consume daily. India produces more than 65 spices in different varieties in different regions of the country. India has a significant share of 48% in quantity and 43% in value of the world trade in spices.

As India is an agriculture-based economy so spice parks are key to its growth. The 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 agriculture-specific and pro-farmers.

What is Spice Park?

We all are aware of what is an industrial park or industrial area is, a spice park is similar to an industrial park the only difference is it caters only to spice industries. Spice parks are developed for processing and value addition of Spices and Spice products which offers the processing facilities at par with the international standards.

So far 8 spice parks have been established on the basis of regional crop-specific Spices Park.

Facilities at Spice Parks

The basic objective of the spice park is to provide common infrastructure facilities for both post-harvest and processing operations of spices and spice products. All the Spices Park have processing facilities with international standards in which the produces could undergo cleaning, grading, sorting, grinding, packing, storing, etc. Apart from these facilities, the Board develops common infrastructure facilities like Roads, Water supply systems, Power stations, Firefighting & Control systems, Weighing bridges, effluent Treatment Plants, Quality labs for checking basic parameters, Bank & Post office counters, Restaurant, Business centers, Guest house, etc.

In these spice parks, the land is provided by the local state government and it is developed and funded by the spice board.

Apart from developing infrastructure facilities, Spices Park provides training programs on Good Agricultural Practices (GAP), post-harvest operations, advanced processing practices and global food safety and quality standards and issues, etc. 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.

Why there is a need for spice parks in India?

India is continuously focusing on increasing its export and spices are the major export product. And with time importing countries are demanding more quality standards like the USA and Europe.

With recent trends among these spice importing countries quality stipulations will definitely go further and only those suppliers who can meet the aspirations of the consumers could be able to survive in the future. To meet this challenge, spice board has come up with the idea of a spice park, where they can standardize the process and improve the quality of the products.  

Spice parks also help by providing rural employment.

Spice parks are 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.

Public-Private Participation in Spice Parks

In Spices Parks, the Board allots the available land in the Park to prospective private entrepreneurs for developing their own processing units for value addition and higher-end processing. Entrepreneurs will develop their processing units by availing of the common facilities in Spices Park. The grower community can make use of these facilities for selling their produce directly to the exporters so that they can avail themselves of the premium price for their produces. On the other side, the exporters can develop a link with a reliable farming community for an uninterrupted supply of farm-fresh raw material for their business.

Locations of Spices parks in India

The Spice Board has established crop-specific Spices Parks in the major producing/market centers. Currently, spice board has established 8 spice parks in India with a partnership of local government. Recently The Karnataka government has decided to establish a Spices Park in Karnataka at Ambale in Chikkamagaluru district, Karnataka on 10 acres.