Nagaon, April 3: Assam's ginger will now spice up European kitchens!

Eight years after a federation was floated to boost ginger production in Karbi Anglong, the spice has finally made its way to the European market, much to the delight of over 6,000 farmers from the central Assam district.

The district, known for its premium quality organic ginger, recently exported 12 metric tonnes of dry ginger to Europe and aims to ship another 41 metric tonnes of processed ginger during the season.

Karbi Anglong Agri Products Ltd, a firm based at Joporajan, and supported by the Ginger Growers' Co-operative Federation (Ginfed) had recently signed a memorandum of settlement with an export firm, Nahor Organic Products, for shipping dry ginger to Spain and London.

Karbi Anglong ginger has recently been accorded geographical indication (GI) along with Tezpur litchi by the GI Registry of India, thereby boosting the commercial prospects of the two farm products of the state.

Eight years ago, the then deputy commissioner of Karbi Anglong M. Angamuthu had taken the initiative of exporting organic ginger from the hill district to Germany, where the spice is in demand.

A ginger-processing unit was installed at Manja, 25km from district headquarters Diphu, soon after the federation was formed. Once production started, a memorandum of settlement was signed with Hyderabad based Sestha International to ship the processed ginger to Germany.

"But the attempt proved futile as the firm did a u-turn and refused to abide by the memorandum. However, we continued our mission for the sake of the farmers. Finally, our dream has come true," said former Ginfed executive Sadyut Sandhan.

Angamuthu, who is currently the deputy commissioner of Kamrup metro, told The Telegraph that the development might go a long way in establishing Karbi Anglong in the international map for its rich natural resources.

"In 2009, we faced a tough task as bringing the deprived ginger farmers under one platform was not easy. Our dream was to bail them out from the shackles of middlemen in a resource-rich but trouble-torn district. I am happy our efforts have paid dividend today," Angamuthu said.

Nahor Organic Products senior executive Sunil Uttam said Spain and the UK are the two European destinations to which the firm has agreed to ship "derivations of organic ginger" from Karbi Anglong.

"We purchase dry ginger and export them in the form of gas or powder. We hope the agreement will continue, as the demand for ginger is big in the European market. We have collected the first consignment of 12 metric tonnes of dry ginger. The next lot of 41 metric tonnes will be collected shortly," Uttam said.

According to an official in the Karbi Anglong agriculture department, the export firm will buy dry ginger at Rs 240 per kg. In 2009, the rate fixed with the Hyderabad-based firm was Rs 32 per kg of raw ginger.

Of the district's 10,334 square km area, the area under crop cultivation covers as many as 2,47,713 hectares. According to the agriculture department, ginger cultivation is done across a 2,600-hectare highland in the district.

"The annual ginger production of the district is about 20,000 tonnes. Its rate during the peak season is Rs 18 per kg but goes up to Rs 35 per kg during the off-season. As many as 6,000 households in the district are involved in ginger cultivation," said sub-divisional officer of the agriculture department, S.K. Tiwari.