Cloves from Kanniyakumari’s hills receive GI tag

About 760 hectares of area in the district cultivate cloves, and represent about 73 per cent of cultivation area in the whole of Tamil Nadu, said District Collector M Arvind.
Cloves from Kanniyakumari’s hills receive GI tag

NAGERCOIL: Clove, valued for its culinary use and medicinal properties, is one of the prominent spice crop cultivated at Maramalai, Karumparai, Vellimalai, and other hills in the Western Ghats of Kanniyakumari district. Accounting for almost 65 per cent of the State’s total production, these cloves are the latest locally-grown agricultural produce to receive the Geographical Identification (GI) tag.

About 760 hectares of area in the district cultivate cloves, and represent about 73 per cent of cultivation area in the whole of Tamil Nadu, said District Collector M Arvind. Of the 1,100 MT of clove production in India, TN produces close to 1,000 MT; about 670-750 MT of this comes from Kanniyakumari district.

The collector attributed efforts by planters’ associations, with support from the district administration for the recognition. “We had been trying for the tag for about seven to eight years now,” said P Lalaji, secretary of Blackrock Hill Planters’ Association. He also urged the government to provide subsidy for clove farmers.

‘Kumari cloves have higher concentrations of oil’

“The climate in the hilly regions is ideal for clove cultivation. Both the southwest and northeast monsoons and the sea mist adds to the benefits,” said M Subramanian, secretary of Maramalai Planters’ Association. He noted the cloves produced here have an increased concentration of oil.

While the typical volatile oil content is about 18 per cent in cloves, here it ranges between 19 to 21 per cent. Moreover, Kanniyakumari cloves are thick compared to those from other regions. The bud and its oil are also used in the pharmaceutical and perfume industries, he added.

The cloves are collected from across the district. The spice is the dried unopened flower buds of the tree, Syzygium Aromaticum. It takes about eight years to harvest the unopened bud. The harvesting period here is between mid-January and mid-March, said Subramanian, adding that around 10,000 workers are involved in the process.

Thanjavur’s Kalamkari paintings get a tag too
Thanjavur: The traditional Karuppur Kalamkari Painting done using pens, brushes made of bamboo stick, palm stem, date tree and coconut tree stems, received the GI tag. The certificate was issued recently by the Geographical Indications Registry based on an application filed by the TN Handicrafts Development Corporation (Poompuhar) | P4

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