The price of ginger, which is presently very high owing to shortfall in production, is expected to firm up around Rs. 4,000 a quintal by the harvest season, according to a price-forecast study.
To help farmers decide whether to opt for ginger cultivation this season or not, the Market Intelligence Cell of the University of Agricultural Sciences, Bangalore, took up an early survey of traders and collected the modal prices of ginger in Bangalore market in the last 11 years besides conducting an econometric analysis to forecast the price of ginger when the crop comes up for harvesting in November-December.
The survey indicates that the kharif season ginger may fetch a modal price of about Rs. 4,000 a quintal during the harvest season against the present price which is fluctuating upwards of Rs. 11,000 a quintal.
C.P. Gracy, who headed a three-member price research team that included Jyoti Naik and Nagashree N., told The Hindu that the normal price of ginger was around Rs. 2,000 a quintal before the price fluctuation.
“The present price level is only temporary and mainly due to the high demand triggered by shortfall in production,” she said while indicating that it may not be appropriate to consider the present range of price for any comparison with future price.
60 p.c. fall
Wayanad and surrounding areas in Kerala, which account for the highest ginger production in the country, reported nearly 60 per cent fall in production in 2012-13, the survey notes.
In Karnataka, ginger is grown in about 29,000 hectares, spread over mainly in Hassan, Kodagu, Shimoga, Chickmagalur, Bidar and Mysore districts. It is cultivated both as the main crop as well as an intercrop in plantations.
India is the largest producer of ginger in the world, with an estimated production of 7,56,000 tonnes in 2012-13 against the global production of about 1.6 million tonnes. About 1,55,000 hectares of land is under ginger cultivation in India with an average productivity of 1,514 kg per hectare.
India accounts for about 21 per cent of the global share of ginger production, followed by China (20.5 per cent), Indonesia (12.7 per cent), Nepal (11.5 per cent) and Thailand (10 per cent). India is also the largest exporter of ginger. India exported about 35,616.4 tonnes of ginger to the United States, the UAE, Bangladesh, Saudi Arabia, Germany, Morocco, the United Kingdom, Nepal, Spain, Egypt and other countries during 2011-12.
In India, ginger is cultivated mainly in Kerala, Odisha, Karnataka, Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, West Bengal and Sikkim.
