"Available data on production and the area under cultivation is not reliable due to many factors like absence of uniform standards and under-reporting," he said. Tansparent data gathering and dissemination systems will help in improving the income of growers of spices as well as for effective intervention in the markets, he said.
According to Selvan, the existing system of gathering data on crop output and the area under cultivation has several lacunae, including timely availability of crop estimates.
"The latest official data available on spices output and the area under spices cultivation in the country is for 2005-06 (Apr-Mar). The figures for 2006-07 and 2007-08 are still in the stage of estimation only," Selvan pointed out. The Directorate of Economic and Statistics (DES) under the ministry of agriculture is the nodal agency for releasing data on agriculture crops including spices, he said.
The central government agency is dependent on state-level economic and statistics departments for inputs on production and the area under cultivation, he added.
The departments at the state levels are not following a uniform system in data gathering or dissemination leading to various discrepancies, Selvan said.
"It is high time that the Agriculture Statistical Research Institute under the Indian Council of Agriculture Research formulates a uniform standard for collecting information on production and area" he added.
Dearth
Out of 52 major spices listed by Spices Board, DES is having database on only around 30 crops, Selvan said.
Data on many economically important spices are still not in the list of DES due to state-level agencies not supplying the same, he said.
DES is not having any reliable data on seed spices like cumin, fenugreek, Fennel and cloves, he added.
Unreliability of data is also hampering the development of an effective market intelligence system in the country, Selvan said.
Production figures released by the official agency at the national level are also having discrepancies due to region-specific factors in measurement, he said.
In the case of ginger, in states like Kerala and Tamil Nadu, the production estimate is done on the basis of dry weight, while in the north-eastern states it is on the basis of wet weight (fresh ginger), he said.
In the case of chilli also these kind of discrepancies exist in different states, he added.
Under-reporting output
Under-reporting of output and the area under cultivation is another major problem, especially in the case of pepper, Selvan said.
According to official estimates, Kerala is still credited with 90 per cent of pepper output in the country.
However, Selvan said pepper output in Karnataka is nearly as high as that of Kerala but this fact is seldom captured in official pepper output estimates.
Pepper is grown in Karnataka mainly as an inter-crop with coffee but growers are not keen to acknowledge the existence of pepper to avoid agriculture tax, he said.
The discrepancy of this magnitude will have an impact on price formation of a commodity like pepper which is traded widely at the global and national levels, he said.
