India faces turmeric production challenge amid rising global competition

To make the turmeric sector a billion-dollar industry in India, PM Narendra Modi set up a separate National Turmeric Board in Nizamabad on 14 January to encourage growers, traders, and processors.
Representative image of vendors selling Turmeric plants ahead of the Pongal festival at Koyambedu market.
Representative image of vendors selling Turmeric plants ahead of the Pongal festival at Koyambedu market. (File Photo)
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NEW DELHI: India’s aspiration to become a global turmeric production hub in the next five years may soon face a reality challenge. Despite being the world leader in turmeric production, productivity efficiency has significantly reduced in the past decade.

In the meantime, new players like Fiji, Netherlands and Germany are fast catching up with the quality production of turmeric with high content of curcumin has reduced the share of India. Further, India has also become the second largest importer of niche turmeric after the USA.

A new report, ‘Making India the Global Hub for Turmeric’, by the Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations (ICRIER) and Amway, released by NITI Ayog member Ramesh Chand, underlined the current challenges in turmeric production and the challenges before the sustainability of India's ayurvedic medicinal system’s ‘yellow gold’.

India is the largest producer, consumer, and exporter of turmeric, accounting for 70% of the world’s production. But for a long time, Indian farmers and policymakers were not very aware of the importance of curcumin content. The majority of Indian turmeric content has 2% curcumin content. Also, rampant pesticides used by farmers to get turmeric are less preferred by offshore countries due to its high residual content.

“India is importing because it needs to develop turmeric product with high curcumin quantity,” said Arpita Mukherjee, lead author of the report. Further, she said India has now started focussing on developing products.

To make the turmeric sector a billion-dollar industry in India, Prime Minister Narendra Modi set up a separate National Turmeric Board in Nizamabad on 14 January to encourage growers, traders, and processors.

“The Board will ensure better opportunities for innovation, global promotion and value addition in turmeric production. It will strengthen the supply chains, benefiting both farmers and consumers alike,” Modi posted on X.

However, despite having the largest 30 varieties of turmeric in India, the curcumin content is too low. Except for the Lakadong Turmeric varieties of Meghalaya, which have the highest curcumin content in the range of 6.8-7.8 % per kg, whereas the other varieties have a curcumin content in the range of 2-4%.

“Now the challenge before India is to invest in R&D to increase curcumin content and become a major hub,” said Chand.

Another major challenge pointed out by the expert is no assessment of the demand and consumption of turmeric in the country.

“Lack of assessment, small producers face price fluctuation, which leads to loss and consequently reduces production,” said Dr Prabhat Kumar, Horticulture Commissioner. He emphasised the need to conduct an assessment study as soon as possible.

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