Pepper farmers appealed to govt for immediate stop on all illegal imports of pepper

Pepper farmers appealed to govt for an immediate stop on all illegal imports of pepper

The domestic pepper farmers’ association has appealed to the Central government for immediate assistance in putting a stop to all illegal imports of pepper coming from Vietnam and Brazil via the Myanmar border. This would be to the benefit of the domestic pepper farmers’ association.

The Kerala chapter of the Indian Pepper and Spice Traders, Growers, and Planters Consortium pointed out that the Customs have seized many containers of black pepper imported from Vietnam and Brazil with misdeclaration of plastic films, paper, and other items, and the product is flooding the consuming markets of Delhi, Mumbai, Indore, Jaipur, and other cities, resulting in a decline in the prices of black pepper.

The demand for domestic consumption in producing centers like Kerala and Karnataka is also met by such shipments, which is a positive development. Also Read | Domestic pepper prices begun to feel burden due to cheaper imports from Vietnam.

Memorandum that was turned in

In this regard, Kishore Shamji, the Coordinator of the Consortium, presented a memorandum to the visiting Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal. In it, he highlighted various demands to take the Prime Minister’s slogan of ‘Vocal for Local,’ protecting the domestic pepper growing community in the process.

The Consortium notes that EOUs and SEZs are allowed to send imported pepper out for job work or processing as a component of value addition and re-exports and that this is something that can be done legally.

On the other hand, it is a commonly held belief among those involved in pepper farming that this imported product makes its way onto the domestic market, which is detrimental to the interests of domestic growers.

The Consortium lobbied the government to require that duty-free import licenses be granted by the DGFT exclusively to those businesses that have pepper turnover and a registered number with the Spices Board.

Also Read | Kerala Forest Development Corporation use e-commerce to market organic cardamom.