The Department of Agriculture and Cooperation, Ministry of Agriculture, is the prime agency responsible for the integrated development of spices in India. It is formulating national policies, schemes and programmes for achieving rapid growth in the sector, through the optimum utilisation of India’s land, water, soil and plant resources. It supplements and complements the efforts being made by the State Governments to promote production of various spice products.

The Spices Board of India is one of the five Commodity Boards functioning under the Ministry of Commerce and Industry. It is an autonomous body responsible for the export promotion of the scheduled spices and production development of some of them such as Cardamom and Vanilla. It holds several responsibilities related to export promotion of spices, like, quality certification; quality control; registration of exporters; collection and documentation of trade information; provision of inputs to the Central Government on policy matters relating to import and export of spices; etc. The main functions of the Spices Board are:-

• Research, development and regulation of domestic marketing of small and large cardamom;
• Research and production development of vanilla;
• Post harvest improvement of all spices;
• Promotion of organic production, processing and certification of spices;
• Development of spices in the North East;
• Provision of quality evaluation services as well as brand promotion; etc.

Further, the All India Spices Exporters Forum formed for the coordinated development of the efforts of Spices industry, and to supplement the efforts of Spices Board of India. The major objective of the Forum is to promote goodwill and cooperation among exporters and to lend a helping hand in lightening the problems faced by them. The Forum's mission include:-

• Strive to inconsistently increase per unit realisation in spices exports by initiating products and packaging development and upgradation.
• Undertake and participate in activities to influence policies of State and Central bodies.
• Intervene and catalyse development of better technologies and farm practices in the supply chain by striving for standards of cleanliness and promoting safe use of post-harvest handling.
• Act as a repository of all market, technical and policy information and disseminate it to all its members.
• Expand the collective knowledge of the industry and disseminate scientific information to all concerned.

Since inception, the Forum has come a long way and now has over a hundred members from different parts of the country who are closely related to the spice trade. It now represents over 90 percent of the spices export trade. In order to expand its reach and extend its services to the entire spices exporting community, it is taking initiatives to induct more members. Membership is open to the actual spices exporters and Associate membership to those who have related interest in the spice trade.

Besides, the Indian Institute of Spices Research (IISR) has also been set up as a constituent body of Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) which is devoted to research on spices. It serve as an Institute of excellence for conducting and coordinating research on all aspects of spices improvement, production, protection and post harvest technology. The main objectives with which the Institute has been set up are to:-

• extend services and technologies to conserve spices genetic resources as well as soil, water and air of spices agro-ecosystems;
  
• develop high yielding and high quality spices varieties and sustainable production and protection systems using traditional and non-traditional techniques and novel biotechnology approaches;
  
• develop post harvest technologies of spices with emphasis on product development and product diversification for domestic and export purposes;
  
• act as a centre for training in research methodology and technology upgradation of spices and to coordinate national research projects;
  
• monitor the adoption of new and existing technologies to make sure that research is targeted to the needs of farming community;
• serve as a national centre for storage, retrieval and dissemination of technological information on spices.

The research programmes of the Institute are carried out under various projects, which are time bound, and with specific objectives. The broad areas under which research is being conducted at the Institute include:-

• Collection, conservation, evaluation and cataloguing of germplasm.
  
• Development of varieties of high yield, quality and resistance to biotic and abiotic stresses through conventional and biotechnological approaches.
  
• Standardizing propagation methods to ensure large scale production and distribution of high yielding genotypes.
  
• Development of agro-techniques for increasing production and productivity.
  
• Integrated pest and disease management.
  
• Post harvest technology.
  
• Socio-economic aspects of cultivation, marketing and information dissemination in spices.
  

The services available to farmers from the Institute are:- Sale of planting material of major spices (like improved varieties of black pepper, ginger, turmeric, nutmeg, cinnamon, clove, vanilla, cardamom, allspice, garcinia, Piper chaba, Long pepper, etc.); Extension literature on nominal cost on various technologies in spices production; Farm advisory services free of cost; Diagnostic services like soil testing, manure testing, plant and water analysis on nominal rates; Field visits on request and Training free of cost.