Production performance and potential of major spices of Northeast Region, India

Abstract

India's North East region is known as a significant spice hub. The study was carried out to analyze the growth rate, instability in area and production of spices in NER of India and evaluated the effect of area, yield and their interaction in increasing the production. The result shows that the almost all the states have a positive significant growth rate of spice production in the NER and as well as low to medium instability index. The decomposition analysis showed that the yield effect is more responsible for increasing production of ginger, black pepper and large cardamom with contribution of 49.83 percent, 60.34 percent and 43.36 percent respectively, while for turmeric the area effect (59.9%) has more contribution than the yield effect. With the right emphasis on infrastructure and targeted research, the full potential of the region’s spice can be tapped. Focusing on agro-processing units is crucial for post-harvest management and value addition of products and it is also advised to set up farmer cooperatives and groups both locally and regionally.