Guntur “mirchi sannnalu”, a global brand of red chilli, is attracting film-makers from across the world. A documentary film-making unit of the BBC World on Thursday visited Asia’a largest chilli market and interacted with the chairman, representatives of the trade and farmers.
Cherry, Francis and John Sam from the BBC accompanied by ITC manager Bhaskar had their first brush of the trade. They sought to know more about the electronic trading practices, e-Nam, set to be launched this season. The BBC documentary comes after two young film-makers from Germany, Eva Weingart and Max Weingart, produced a documentary on the famed Guntur chilli titled “Holy Chili”.
“The film-makers wanted to know about the trading practices. In a season, transactions worth $100 billion take place. More than 10,000 farmers and traders visit the chilli market every day in the season, and the red chilli produced in Guntur is exported to 12 countries fetching a foreign exchange of $125 million. Nowhere in the world, probably after Mexico, chilli is traded on such a large scale,” Mr. Subba Rao told The Hindu .
After explaining about the local factors that resulted in a dip in production this year, and the price crash witnessed last year, Mr. Rao took them around the market.
Mr. Francis said that he was impressed with the transparency in trading and appreciated the market committee for providing facilities such as drinking water and rest rooms for farmers.
