Too many cooks? Indian spice products hurt by too many, not too few, standards

It will be facile to say that in the effort to grab orders, Indian companies are cutting corners. The problems run deeper and paradoxically it is not that there are no checks to regulate the quality of these exports. 

There are possibly too many standards in the game. One of those is the multiplicity of testing boards and laboratories straddling the field of spices. With good reason, since in FY23 the country exported $3.73 billion of these products, mostly turmeric, chilli, garlic and cumin seeds which occupy 75% of the total exports. For FY24, the final numbers are expected to be even higher. So, the stakes are high.

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Turmeric issue

For instance, to promote the exports of turmeric, the Centre has established the National Turmeric Board in 2023. This is laudable but creates its own challenges as the latest case shows. Already in the field of turmeric there are two regulatory bodies, the Spices Board and the Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (APEDA). Quality controls on turmeric production at the farm level is monitored by APEDA. Once the turmeric is dried for processing to arrive at our kitchens, it is the Spices Board which gets into the action.

To cut pests from the farms, both Boards prescribe different levels of pesticides, besides mandating other lab tests. Given the humid climate where these are produced, these steps are unavoidable to keep the products free of worms. 

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The Hong Kong stricture was incidentally about levels of pesticides. Yet in the presence of multiple regulatory authorities, it becomes difficult to establish the traceability route, i.e. to figure out which prescription may have overdosed. The establishment of the National Turmeric Board will hopefully combine all these roles under one regulatory body and create visibility about contradictory directions.

This is most necessary to replicate for other spices too. These crops are highly vulnerable to variations in local weather as well as susceptible to contamination. As the demand for species has shot up post covid, farmers have the incentive to use every possible means to maximize production. 

Pesticides are one of their friends. A laboratory mandated by one of the Boards is unlikely to find fault with the standards applied by the farmers. By the time the products arrive on the company shelves the damage is already done. It does not help that the companies often use these slips to clear their own samples instead of rigorously examining themselves.

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A familiar problem

Some years earlier, India and Bhutan were locked in a dispute over the exports of chillies. The issue was again the same. The consignments from India were held up at the border on the issue of standards. Surprisingly, the reports on the basis of which the Bhutanese government took action to ban their imports were done by a ring of India based laboratories but those confirming to EU standards and beyond the purview of the different export boards.

There is no doubt that the demand for spices will continue to shoot up. The potential for India is therefore substantial. The long-term remedy lies in integrating the copious laboratory networks, upgrading them and then checking for possible losses the farmers will incur in the process with the attendant high levels of rejection. The corollary will be higher prices of these essential stuff. India and the world need to spice up their plate. Too many, not too few, standards often impact spice products from India.