Potential Crops For Marketing within and outside the Country:
- Ginger: (Jan-April)
The ‘Nadia’ variety for its low fibre & high oil content found suitable for table purposes, which mainly grows in Arunachal Pradesh, Assam & Meghalaya is the most preferred variety in domestic as well as in international markets. These are sold as ‘fresh ginger’ in gunny bags in the domestic markets. And after proper cleaning, sorting & grading packed in cardboard cartons exported mainly to west Asian markets.
The other use of this variety is for processing into making ginger paste for home use. Some major FMCG companies like ‘Dabur’ has branded this as Homemadeand have been marketing within & outside the country for several years now.
The ‘Dried Ginger’ whole, sliced or in powder form finds favour with the exporters for world markets to be used in food preparations and is one of the major products exported from India.
2. Turmeric: (Jan- April)
The North East region is home to Turmeric ‘the wonder spice’ with very high ‘curcumin’ content; in the Lakadong variety of Jowai in Meghalaya with the highest at 7-12% as well as the Megha I variety with 4-7 % are higher than any other varieties in the country have been the craze amongst the pharmaceutical, neutraceutical as well as Ayurvedic& beauty care & cosmetic product manufacturers.
The fresh turmeric is locally used, mainly within the region; in various culinary preparations. The dried form, both as a whole or slice are taken outside by traders to Delhi, Kanpur , Jaipur etc. and mixed with other major varieties with low cur cumin content to process & produce hundreds of brands being marketed in India & some are also exported worldwide. The irony is that, due to absence of proper state of the art processing facility within the region, these high value agri produce are still unknown to the consumers.
3. Chilies: (Nov-Jan)
The ‘Raja’ or ‘Naga’ chilli which is recognized worldwide as one of the hottest species in the world with maximum capsaicin content measured at 1.10 million SHU (scoville heat units) is the other star product from this region which finds the same fate as the turmeric. Because of its high pungency, these are mixed with other low pungency varieties from Guntur & elsewhere to produce various branded products and sold everywhere; but never mentioned its place of origin. Its one of the major use is in the preparation of hundreds of branded snacks varieties in the country.
There is another unique chili variety in the NE region called ‘Bird’s Eye chilli’ which is smaller but with high capsaicin content. For many years these have been procured by traders from here & exported to USA & Europe for making pepper spray (stun guns) being used by ladies as self protection device. Unfortunately, both these exotic products are not getting their due recognition for lack of processing facility locally.
4. Black Rice: (Nov-Dec)
Pigmented rice has been consumed for a long time in Asia,especially China, Japan, Korea and many other countries in Southeast Asia. Black rice is a type of pigmented rice with black bran covering the endosperm of the rice kernel. It hastypical nutty flavor, aroma which turns deep dark purple color when cooked. It takes longer time to cook and is stickier when compared to white rice. In ancient China, black rice is called forbidden rice because it was considered as the finest grain and only served to the emperors and forbidden elsewhere. According to the data reported by Chaudhary (2003) the richest country in black rice resources is China (62%) followed by Sri Lanka (8.6%), Indonesia (7.2%), India (5.1%), the Philippines(4.3%), Bangladesh (4.1%), and few in Malaysia, Thailand and Myanmar. The demand for black rice has been increasing in today’s world due to their multiple biological activities because of the presence of phenolic and antioxidant compounds. Many research studies had shown the health benefits of black rice. According to a study presented at the 240th national meeting of the American Chemical Society, health benefits of black rice of China includes prevention of cancer, diabetes, heart diseases, Alzheimer’s disease, gallstones etc. Black rice is represented as potential source of anti-oxidants. There is a need for promotion of this rice as functional foods because of therapeutic benefits. In India, black rice is cultivated only in few areas like North East India. In Manipur, two varieties of aromatic black rice are grown. They are Poireitonchakhao and Chakhaoamubi. However, due to lack of documentation, people are not aware of importance of black rice in India. Although black rice is known for its medicinal and health benefits in other countries, the knowledge regarding the importance of black rice is lacking behind in India. In this context the study has been conducted to study the physical characteristic, cooking properties, nutritional composition and phytonutrient contents of black rice.It was be concluded from the study that black rice was a good source of protein, dietary fiber, zinc, iron and manganese. Phytonutrients like polyphenol and phytate contents were higher than white rice. Black rice also had high antioxidant activity. Therefore black rice could be a source of nutraceuticals. The traditional foods of black rice could be modified to incorporate in the formulation of therapeutic diets.
( Department of Food Science and Nutrition, College of Rural Home Science, Dharwad University of Agricultural Sciences, Dharwad – 580 005, Karnataka, India)
5. Black Pepper (Piper nigrum) (Dec-March)
This is one of the other major spices found in the NE states in its current form of grown without chemical fertilizers as in the case of most of the agri produce of the region where the tribal farmers can neither afford to purchase or they are least interested to take up commercial farming unlike their friends from the other parts of the country.
6. PiperLongum (peepli): (Dec-April)
This is another exotic spice from the region which is popular with Ayurveda medicine manufacturers like Dabur, Baidyanath & others in the manufacture of popular brand Chyawanprash. Mainly grown in Meghalaya, this spice if also found in Nagaland to a lesser extent.
7. Large cardamom: (Nov- April)
Termed as the most important spice crop of Sikkim which earns a substantial amount of revenue to this small Himalayan state. It has been continuously growing in acreage in the state & the farmers are hugely benefitted from this cropwhich isalso being exported. In addition to Sikkim, this crop is also found to be grown in the state of Nagaland&Manipur but in a much smaller scale.