Growers defy Spices Board on vanilla rates

Blaming the Spices Board and middlemen for creating an artificial decline in vanilla prices, All Kerala Vanilla Growers Association on Tuesday said it had decided to purchase vanilla from growers at Rs 6,000 per kg as against Rs 1500 fixed by the board.

The price of processed vanilla, which was hovering between Rs 25,000-Rs 50,000 per kg in international markets two years ago, was brought down to Rs 250 by "middlemen and monopolies", and after the intervention by the board, it was fixed at Rs 1500, Ashoka Ambalavayal, secretary of the association told reporters here.

It was the association's prime motive that the farmers should decide the prices of their produce, and in view of this, the association, which has established Vaga agro products, had decided to purchase vanilla at an higher price, Ashokan said.

To implement the goal, the association, which was already purchasing vanilla from the farmers in Kerala and Karnataka, would procure them from the farmers of the Nilgiris district of Tamil Nadu, he said.

Without depending on the international market, the processed vanilla beans and vanillated products could be distributed in Indian markets, with an assured premium to the growers.Vaga, with processing factories at Sulthan Bathery in Wayanad district and Kallar in Idukki district in Kerala, has launched vanilla blended coffee and tea. Commercial production would commence within two months.

Another factory at a cost of Rs 3.5 crore was coming up at Wayanad, Ashokan said, adding A Miller, the Tamil Nadu tourism minister, would inaugurate the procurement of Nilgiris vanilla on October 28 at Gudalur.