Afghan imports to India stall; dry fruit, asafoetida prices may go up

Kochi: The ongoing crisis in Afghanistan and the resultant halting of imports from the country may result in higher prices for some essential cooking ingredients like asafoetida.

If the grim situation continues, you may not get aromatic asafoetida to lend taste to 'sambar' or rasam'.

You may also miss out the special variety of cumin to spice up your ‘biryani’. The shortage of asafoetida, and dry fruits such as kismis (raisins or dry grapes) would be deeply felt.

The import of figs, apricots and green and black raisins, pistachios and almonds would also be hit by the new development.

The prices of most of these products have already gone up with the fast-changing situation.

India used to impose lower customs duty on products imported from Afghanistan. All these products were imported duty free under South Asian Free Trade Area (SAFTA) agreement before the Taliban took control of Afghanistan.

Now with customs and banking facilities going non-functional under the new Taliban dispensation in Afghanistan, the import of these products has come to a standstill.

Major source

About 75 per cent of India's dry fruit import comes from Afghanistan. For asafoetida, we are fully dependent on Afghanistan. The India's asafoetida business comes to the volume of 1500 tonnes yearly, resulting in a business of Rs.1,000 crore.

Even though Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Iran are producers of asafoetida, India doen't have duty-free concession for importing products from there. Asafoetida imported from these countries do not match with the quality of the products imported from Afghanistan. Moreover, asafoetida from Afghanistan comes here as well-refined products. There are as many as 30 asafoetida brands from Afghanistan available in the Indian market.

Experimental farming

India began experimenting with asafoetida cultivation under the aegis of the Institute of Himalayan Bioresource Technology (IHBT), a wing of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), based in Palampur, Himachal Pradesh. The Institute had planted 800 saplings of Ferula asafoetida in the cold desert region of Lahau.

It will take five years for the asafoetida plant to attain full growth. If the experiment succeeds, the asafoetida cultivation will be extended to the States of Arunachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand.

Asafoetida is the dried latex (gum oleoresin) that is released from the rhizome or tap root of several species of perennial herb Ferula.