Spice Board tele-network to update farmers on price, weather

The Spices Board of India has launched a tele-network to provide cardamom farmers with update on the prices, weather, and the likely effect of weather on the production level. Board chairman V. Jayathilak launched the initiative in the State at a function held Thodupuzha on Thursday.

The tele-network was part of the Spices Board’s interactive programmes to help farmers, said an official.

In recent times, cardamom prices have witnessed high fluctuations and the deficient rain being experienced in the cardamom-cultivating areas of the high ranges is likely to have an impact on the production level in the current season.

The official said that farmers had responded positively to the tele-network launched in Coimbatore recently. It helped farmers clear their doubts and they were also given advices on scientific farming practices.

Farmers who depend on the representatives of fertilizer companies to clear their doubts often land in trouble, resulting in crop loss and plant decay. Most of the marginal farmers follow unscientific application of pesticides.

The official said that Spices Board conducted seminars on the economic and scientific ways of cultivation, pesticide application and on protecting plants from decay. The diseases found on the plants were often confined to a particular area and the board had been helping the farmers through the mobile clinics that routinely visited the plantation areas. The tele-network would provide timely data on weather changes, a major factor affecting production, to the officials as well, the official said.