Kerala: Spice farmers get online help to fight plant disease

KOCHI: The Kochi-headquartered Spices Board’s research wing, the Indian Cardamom Research Institute (ICRI) at Myladumpara in Idukki district is offering an online spice clinic facility to farmers. The farmers are getting expert guidance on plant diseases through the initiative.“This is how we somehow control the pest and disease outbreak in the cardamom hill reserve. Earlier, we used go to the places where an outbreak is happening, as informed by the farmers and our scientist team will be offering advisory services on managing the issues. Now, it is difficult during the pandemic to do so and hence we have gone online. The farmers will ask questions after the sessions and will also send us the photographs of the plants,” said AB Rema Shree, director-research, Spices Board.With the pandemic stopping the farmers from walking into their plant clinic, the ICRI decided to go online and conducted the first such one on ‘Viral Diseases of Small Cardamom and their Management’ on November 24, last year for the farmers from the states of Kerala, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. Saju K A, a scientist with ICRI, advised the farmers on viral diseases of small cardamom and their management. “We have also formed four farmer groups--–two each for Kerala and Tamil Nadu with each group containing nearly 500 farmers----to share the information. We also share the advice with other groups like that of the Tamil Nadu Agricultural University or Coffee Research Institute because a lot of inter-cropping with spices is happening. That is how it reaches out to maximum farmers,” Shree said.Towards the end of 2020 itself, online sessions on topics like harvesting and processing of black pepper, impact of climate change on small cardamom and farmers’ experience in cardamom cultivation were held.