Ginger Popcorn, Exports Halted & Ginger Ale Recall

We are a little late with this post as we are working on a major development at All Things Ginger. We are not going to tell you what it is yet but when it is ready we think you will be impressed.

The Dieline, a website dedicated to package design, reports that Canada Dry Green Tea Ginger Ale is the most successful new product launch to date for Dr Pepper Snapple Group. I've never tried it but I am quite taken with the look of the can.

A gingerbread-flavoured popcorn has been launched ready for Easter by the UK gourmet popcorn maker Joe & Seph’s. Popcorn sales in the UK have increased rapidly over the last three years with the market in 2011 worth £53 million according to Mintel. (Source: The Food & Drink Innovation Network).

There was a blunt message last week in The Produce News - "Chinese ginger exports have ground to a halt". What normally happens in China is that ginger is harvested in November and placed in sand to cure and dry in caves until January. But this winter China is experiencing one of its coldest winters in four decades and the ginger is not curing. The price of Chinese ginger has already risen as a consequence and is expected to continue rising.

The ginger revival in Sierra Leone has been boosted by the news that the Africa Growth and Opportunities Act has certified ginger for export to the USA and Europe. Sierra Leone has been exporting ginger on a small scale to the Netherlands for a number of years. This has been quite an achievement as the Sierra Leone ginger industry was all but wiped out during the civil war from 1991-2002. (Source: Awoko).

Here is some important news if you live in New Zealand and you have bought a Schweppes Dry Ginger Ale with a best-before date between January 10th and January 30th, 2014. It has got to go back. Coca-Cola is recalling this drink along with four other Schweppes drinks because of a possible problem with the glass bottle. (Source: 3news).

Greene King, the pub retailer and brewer, has revealed its 2013 guest ales calendar. And guess what? The brewer has a ginger offering. Twisted Wheel, a light ale with a twist of ginger, will be available from April to June. According to The Drinks Business, this beer is named after the famous Manchester northern soul club which had previously been the UK's first Mod club.

The Maine Organic Farmers & Gardeners Association has published an interesting article about growing ginger in the state. We have mentioned growing ginger in Maine before in this post. Farmers in the state appear to concentrate on producing immature (or baby) ginger which is popular both cooked and raw in salads.

The Fiji Times reported that over the last ten years the country's production of ginger has been 75% immature (baby, green) and 25% mature. With the country set to start exporting mature ginger to Australia, the Ministry of Agriculture needs farmers to convert their immature ginger crops to mature ginger.

In our last post we reported that Nepal has now become the third largest producer of ginger in the world. The Himalayan has now stated that Nepal is third in terms of the total export volume of ginger but eighth in terms of value. In other words, Nepal is not getting enough for its ginger compared to other countries. The article also mentions that ginger production in Nepal is growing a faster rate than in the major competitor countries of India, China and Indonesia. The Kathmandu University School of Management has found that the best way to increase export earnings is to export value-export value-added ginger. And the best form of value-added ginger is ginger powder which is seeing increasing demand around the world.

The price of Nigerian dried ginger appears to be stable even though 70% of the current harvest has been sold. Incidentally, Nigeria used to be the third largest exporter of ginger until Nepal overtook it.

The Radio Taiwan blog published a post on the benefits of ginger in winter. What took my eye was the fact that ginger is harvested in Taiwan all year.

How Funny Do You Think You Are, Ice Cream, Beer & Beat The Heat

I shall start this week by congratulating Yorvale for winning both Best in Class & Best Ice Cream at the Great Yorkshire Show for its Lemon, Honey and Ginger ice cream. I've said it before and I'll say it again, it's the ginger! Yorvale produces its ice cream from its own herd of 40 cows.

Asia's biggest food industry event, the Taipei International Food Show, was held at the end of last month with the aim of launching new products in both Taiwan and overseas. One of the participants was the Indonesian Trade Ministry who hosted a pavilion with the theme "Remarkable Indonesia". With Indonesia being one of the ginger world's major players, it won't surprise you to learn that one of the products on show was a ginger juice. Exports of Indonesian ginger root has dropped dramatically in recent years so I am wondering whether the export of value-added products such as ginger juice is the preferred option. In a previous post I mentioned that ginger from four countries including Indonesia will be part of the Sustainable Spices Initiative.

In the last fiscal year, India exported 5.75 lakh tonnes of spices, a near ten per cent increase over the previous year. Of this total, ginger contributed four per cent which equated to two per cent of earnings. Considering that the majority of Indian ginger is produced for domestic consumption, we can see that it is also an important foreign exchange earner. (In case you are wondering, a lakh is a unit in the numbering system used in the Indian subcontinent equal to one hundred thousand).

Denver's Westword blog reports that Crabtree Brewing is moving to larger premises. Why is this of interest? Well, the brewery will now be able to make more of its regular beers including Ginger Bee, a 6.5% abv blonde ale brewed with fresh hand-cut ginger and orange blossom honey.

Americans love to add ginger to blonde beers and wheat beers. This brings me to Calicraft, a three-month-old brewery in California, which brews a 4.6% abv ginger wheat beer called Napa Smith.

August 6th this year is the 50th anniversary of Jamaican independence. Celebrations will be held all over the world including a programme of film, music and comedy shows in London called Respect Jamaica 50. And Retail Times informs us that the official soft drinks sponsor of these shows will be Old Jamaica ginger beer from Cott Beverages. I've never tried this drink but Jamaicans are said to be very proud of it as it contains their beloved local root ginger with its internationally renowned fiery taste.

Old Jamaica has also been busy (and, presumably, having a good time) conducting a survey on British humour. According to Digital Spy, the survey found that 55% of men believe that they are funnier than anyone else they know compared to just 22% of women.

If you visit the Old Jamaica website before July 30th, you can enter a joke in the You Can't Beat An Old Jamaican competition.

The Toronto Star carried a timely article on using ginger in drinks to keep cool in summer. I say 'timely' as here in the south of England we are experiencing days of very warm weather (30-32C). I know this is nothing compared to what the USA has been suffering from recently but after months of wind & rain, 30C is welcome. We all know that ginger in winter can be warming but ginger in summer can also be both refreshing and uplifting. Although the article is only concerned with cocktails and beers, it is still an interesting read.

Ginger Volunteers, Baby Ginger, New Drinks, Agroforestry & Meat Proteins

We'll start this week by visiting Taiwan and a pleasing story in Focus Taiwan. This season has seen a glut of ginger on the east coast of the country which has resulted in a drop in price. Farmers, although skilled in producing the ginger, have been struggling in their attempts to sell the harvest. But help has appeared in the form of Star Liu, a university student, and his friend, Terry Kuo. They have been buying ginger from farmers in their home area and selling it for a considerably higher price in the capital, Taipei. They have also engaged in adding value by selling hot ginger tea on the streets of Taipei on cold winter days. This philanthropic act has been so well received that people from Japan and Singapore have also volunteered to help.

The Rodale Institute, a leading US organic agriculture research centre, recommends that farmers produce baby ginger as an unusual way of attracting customers. Baby, or immature, ginger is proving popular in the US for its aroma and mild flavour. Although it is normally grown in the ideal surroundings of Hawaii, it is also being grown as a niche crop undercover by farmers in seemingly unsuitable locations such as Virginia and Pennsylvania. What makes it attractive to US growers is its relatively short shelf life. Baby ginger, harvested after four to six months instead of the usual eight to nine months, can only be stored at room temperature for two to three weeks which rules out shipments (and therefore competition) from overseas.

The American Farm Bureau Federation website, The Voice of Agriculture, contains a fascinating video about farmers in Virginia growing ginger in high tunnels. You may find that the video takes a little while to load but it's worth the wait.

The Fiji Times featured a local farmer who started growing ginger in the early days, gave it up in favour of different crops and has now returned to ginger once again. The story is interesting in itself but when I read that he had been nominated as chairman of the Ginger Council I immediately thought, "what is the Ginger Council?". Well, it was created by an Act of Parliament, the Ginger Council Of Fiji Act, 1996 (this is an RTF file which will require something like Word of Word Viewer). I am not sure but I assume that this body replaced the Ginger Growers Council of Fiji which was established in 1993. Anyway, the principal functions of the Ginger Council are to self-regulate the industry, to produce ginger as cost-effectively as possible and to identify potential export markets.

The Kathmandu Post reported that a Nepalese national level trade association called the Nepal Ginger Producers and Traders Association has been formed with the support of the United States Agency for International Development to promote the interests of ginger farmers. It is envisaged that this new association will also seek to satisfy domestic demand and create new export markets. Currently, India is the destination for around 99 percent of ginger exports. Nepal produces 210,000 tonnes of ginger a year of which 140,000 tonnes are exported. The district of Ilam (the country is divided into 75 districts) is responsible for 65 percent of total production.

It has been a busy week of announcements in the UK for ginger drinks. Blavod Wines and Spirits is launching Red Leg, a premium Caribbean rum spiced with ginger and vanilla. Swedish cider maker Rekorderlig is to launch an orange and ginger cider. And finally, Stone’s Ginger Joe alcoholic ginger beer has secured listings with the Yates’s pub chain and Carlsberg UK, a leading on-trade wholesaler.

Away from the UK, Carlsberg Denmark has launched Somersby Ginger Lemon alcoholic cider (4.5% abv) but only, I believe, for the Danish market initially. In the US, Bruce Cost Ginger Ale now includes passion fruit in its range of unfiltered ginger ales. This new drink also includes a touch of turmeric.

Brewbound, an excellent US site for beer news, reported on the nationwide rollout of three cider varietals from the Angry Orchard Cider Company. One of these drinks is Apple Ginger (5.0% abv) which is a blend of Italian and French apples with fresh Nigerian ginger. Sounds nice.

I am being followed on Twitter by a couple of diabetes organisations - Diabetes UK and The Diabetes Care. I've noticed the occasional reference to ginger and diabetes but I've never really checked to see whether ginger may be beneficial to sufferers or not. So I had a browse and found this interesting Kuwaiti research paper called 'Anti-diabetic and hypolipidaemic properties of ginger (Zingiber officinale) in streptozotocin-induced diabetic rats' from 2006. I won't spoil the read for you (assuming that you find a link for this paper as the Cambridge URL which I'm using keeps changing) but I will say that the outcome is promising. The report concludes by stating that "ginger may be of great value in managing the effects of diabetic complications in human subjects".

In the past, farmers in the Padma floodplain of Bangladesh practised a traditional system of agriculture. This gradually became unsustainable following the rapid increase in population growth. So in the 1990s, scientists recommended that the farmers adopt the mango-based agroforestry system. This system works by planting a few mango trees in and around the selected food crop. This food crop could be ginger or turmeric or one of many other essential commodities. The Center for International Forestry Research blog has just reported the findings of a research paper in the Small-scale Forestry journal on the effectiveness of mango-based agroforestry systems. The research found that a mango-based cropping system coupled with, for example, ginger is more productive than growing ginger on its own. The farmers now have two crops to harvest which means two crops to sell. This increases income and provides income security. The extra money can then be spent on education, housing, sanitation and health needs. Although mango trees can fruit for decades, after a certain stage the fruit yield drops. The trees can then be felled and the wood used for fuel or making furniture.

I also came across what the Indians believe is an under-exploited crop called mango ginger. Surprisingly, it is not related to either mango or ginger but to turmeric. It is popular in Indian pickles.

The Philippine Information Agency reported an interview with the mayor of Pinabacdao, a municipality in the province of Samar, Philippines. He stated that ginger farmers in the hills of Pinabacdao may just be able to rise out of poverty following increased domestic interest in ginger's health benefits and a deal with a Japanese bilk buyer. The mayor will back up his claim by investing public money in farming equipment to ensure that his municipality produces the best ginger in the region.

Just out of interest I checked Wikipedia to find out what a municipality is and discovered that it is a local government unit equivalent to a town. These municipalities are divided into classes based on average annual income during the last three calendar years. The classes range from 1st at the top to 6th at the bottom. Pinabacdao is ranked as 3rd class.

A number of websites, including news.com.au, have reported recently on the latest developments in the Red Meat Combifoods research programme in New Zealand. The purpose of this programme is to find ways that meat proteins can be isolated and then used in other foods. One such resulting food is thyme and ginger-flavoured ice cream. Make up your own mind.

BBC News told us about the food enjoyed by Captain Scott and his team during the expedition to the South Pole a century ago. On special occasions they had crystallised ginger.

Aggie Research reports on a forthcoming paper from North Carolina Central University and North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University. The paper, to be presented this coming week, will show that "ginger extract and its purified component increase red blood cell production (erythropoiesis) in transgenic zebrafish recovering from anaemia, as well as in normal non-anaemic zebrafish". The scientists also discovered that "ginger and its purified component stimulate a signaling pathway that encourages blood stem-cell formation".

Canadian Demand, Help For Nepal, Guyanese Ginger & Price Extremes

What do you do when you can't get the price you need for your newly harvested ginger? If you live in the village of Wooling in Bhutan, you put it back in the ground again. According to Kuensel Online, farmers have found that the current wholesale price is less than half that of a year ago and is now lower than the cost of the initial 'seed' stock. So, rather than accept a loss, the farmers are storing their crops in large pits in the ground and waiting until the price rises to an acceptable level. Bhutan is totally dependent upon India for its ginger exports although insignificant quantities have been exported occasionally to Bangladesh and Thailand. The last available figures show that India imported 1108 tonnes of Bhutanese ginger in 2010. The International Trade Centre has identified ginger as an export sector with high potential.

Demand for ginger and garlic in Quebec and Ontario increased by 200% last year according to one of Canada's leading garlic importers. The Packer reported that the Montreal-based company CDS imports its ginger and garlic from Ecuador to satisfy the health-conscious and those with a taste for ethnic dishes.

eKantipur.com reported that the World Trade Organisation (WTO) has taken the next step in its promotion of ginger from Nepal. The WTO selected Nepal as part of the Trading Stories Project which is designed to help the least developed countries. A WTO team has arrived in the country to film ginger production. The article also mentioned that the Nepalese government will implement a ginger programme over the next two-three years. About 2,000 small ginger farmers will be provided with improved 'seed' stock and a new processing plant.

New Chapter, a major US-based provider of organic and natural food supplements, has been acquired by the multi-national Procter & Gamble. This will enable New Chapter's many ginger products to be brought to the attention of a wider audience.

The Australian ginger harvest is imminent. Watch this space. In the meantime, here is a YouTube video of a ginger harvest.

Let me introduce a new addition to our ever-expanding list of ginger growing countries - Guyana. Although not a major producer, Guyana does grow enough to export principally to Barbados but also to Trinidad and Tobago, Suriname and the Dutch Antilles (all small-scale producers themselves). Ginger is grown in the Barima-Waini region (also known as Region One) in the north west of the country. This is an area which is subject to a long-running territorial dispute between Guyana and Venezuela.

They say that Guyanese ginger beer is a popular drink. This is quite understandable as we all know that ginger beer is a popular drink anywhere, and rightly so.

Promasidor Nigeria Ltd, part of the Africa-wide Promasidor group, has announced that it will launch a ginger-flavoured tea towards the end of March. According to MarketWorld, this tea will be one of two new flavours "being introduced to offer consumers different choices and also add fun, excitement and refreshment to tea consumption".

We've mentioned before that Naitasiri province is a major ginger growing area in Fiji. Prospective ginger farmers last week received encouraging news on fijilive when it reported a statement from Fiji's prime minister that Naitasiri ginger farmers are expected to earn $7 million by next year. To put this into perspective, last year ginger farmers earned $3.5 million.

The Taiwanese government has taken the unusual step of introducing measures to increase the price of domestically grown ginger to protect farmers, according to Focus Taiwan. Following last year's good prices farmers have increased production this year. Now there is a glut of ginger which has led, naturally, to a drop in the price. The government will now activate a procurement mechanism aimed, presumably, at ensuring a minimum price. It will also assist in marketing the crop in both domestic and foreign markets.

Busy Week For UK Ginger Beer, Flooding, Increased Exports & Boozy Award

It has been a busy week for British alcoholic ginger beers. It started with Ginger Joe making its TV debut (see below) with a spoof moustache advert. This was followed by the launch of this year's Crabbie's Christmas TV advertising campaign featuring the popular retro duo George and Camilla. I cannot find a YouTube video for Crabbie's so in the interest of fair play I will offer a link to the Crabbie's TV advert page. And later in the week it was announced that Scottish brewer Williams Brothers has started exporting its alcoholic ginger beer to Australia.



I've mentioned before about how the weather can have a devasting effect on farming businesses. Fresh Plaza reported last week on the plight of farmers in Thailand after 740,000 acres of farmland succumbed to flooding. The forthcoming harvest of ginger will be unaffected as the growing region escaped the floods. Not so lucky are ginger farmers in Taitung County in eastern Taiwan who have suffered extensive damage following 400mm (15.75 inches) of rain in two days. Farmers here are hoping that the central government will activate its compensation scheme.

Continuing last week's story about the spate of suicides in the ginger farming community in the Indian state of Kerala, reports are emerging which seem to indicate that it was the fall in the price of ginger which was the primary contributing factor. By early last week the number of suicides had, sadly, increased to seven. Before the current growing season started, ginger fetched Rs 2,500 per 60kg bag. Then Nepalese ginger reached the Indian market causing the domestic price to plummet to Rs 500, an 80pc fall. Unfortunately, the farmers had to borrow their start-up funds from money lenders and micro-finance institutions as the banks would not advance them loans. With an input cost per acre of Rs 250,000, a harvest yielding less than Rs 150,000 per acre and an interest rate on the loans as high as 24pc, it is not difficult to see why ginger farmers are facing considerable hardship.

These figures seem awfully high when you consider that the total value of Indian ginger exported to Pakistan in the last financial year was Rs320 million.

The Spices Board of India has released its export figures for the April-September half year and it shows that India exported 8,000 tonnes of ginger, a rise of 44pc compared to the same period last year. The value of these exports increased by 151pc to Rs 90.02 crores (Rs 900.2 million).

Congratulations to Boozy Infusions for winning Best Drink at this year’s deliciouslyorkshire food and drink awards for its Jamaica Ginger Cake Infusion liqueur. I'm intrigued to find out more about this unusual drink which has been described as having a 'knockout aroma'.

Well, I managed to buy a couple of packets of the limited edition Dorset Cereals gingerbread porridge after visiting the only stockist in my area three times in four days. I haven't tried it yet so it had better be good.

Great British Beer Hunt, Adulterated Ginger & Ginger Joe

The finalists for the Sainsbury's Great British Beer Hunt 2011 competition have been announced. I mention this because one of the beers on the list is a ginger beer. Frederic’s Great British Ginger Beer from the Frederic Robinson Brewery in Stockport, Cheshire, was one of the winners in the North West England & The Midlands region. It will be listed with all of the other regional winners in Sainsbury's stores for three weeks in September. Based on sales figures and reviews, two beers from each region will go through to a grand final where the overall winner will be listed in 300 stores for at least six months. Many producers would die for the chance to be listed in just a dozen stores so this is a wonderful opportunity for the re-born British craft beer industry.

I don't know anything about Frederic’s Great British Ginger Beer apart from fact that it is produced by the same company which brews Ginger Tom, a springtime seasonal dark ale infused with bruised Chinese ginger root. The company must be hoping to make a name for itself in the world of ginger as it also produces the highly regarded Frederic Robinson Ginger Ale for Marks and Spencer.

The Taiwanese Department of Health (DOH) has confirmed that a consignment of ginger powder adulterated with the plasticiser DIBP was imported from Herbsoul Natural Products Limited, China in June 2008. The DOH has now introduced two measures to control the quality of imported plant products: the first is that all kinds of extracts from plants in powder and liquid form made in China will be required to gain Taiwanese FDA approval before importation, and the second is that all products from Herbsoul must have a test certificate from the Chinese authorities which meets FDA and customs approval.

Recently we tried Ginger Joe, a new alcoholic ginger beer from the makers of Stone’s Original Green Ginger Wine (see launch announcement). We found that it had a pleasant sweet aroma and a taste reminiscent of orange marmalade and ginger, with hints of caramel. Served chilled, it was a refreshing, fizzy drink with enough of a ginger bite to quench your thirst. However, we found that it was not quite as gingery as the label suggested and, for some of our tasters, the use of artificial sweeteners in addition to sugar made it a little too sweet. It has an ABV of 4% but the sweetness did mask the taste of the alcohol. Our overall verdict is that if you like a drink a bit on the sweet side, this is certainly worth a try.

Career Change, More Contamination, Migraine & Irrigation Project

Many people dream of changing their career but few actually do it. So it was pleasing to read of Reuben Canada, a Philadelphia-based patent attorney, who is making a name for himself in the world of ginger. He started in his kitchen by making a ginger-infused syrup to add to vodka. This evolved into a ginger beer type drink called Jin-Ja which contains ginger, cayenne pepper, green tea, lemon juice and mint. Apparently it can be drunk both neat and as a mixer. Canada's Jin-Ja business has proved so successful that he now employs 13 staff. I really admire people who set themselves a challenge and strive for it. As the maxim goes "You only live once".

Following the recent news (see 5th June 2011 post)that ginger product exports from Taiwan are being monitored for DEHP contamination, the Taiwanese themselves have now discovered ginger powder imported from China contaminated with DIBP. DIBP is a plasticiser and it was recently discovered in a consignment of more than 80,000 ginger powder nutrition capsules in Taichung City. What puzzles me is that these plasticisers are manufactured, some undergoing complex processing, at what must be a not inconsiderable expense. Surely it must be easier, safer and cheaper to sell ginger unadulterated.

Reuters reported the preliminary results of a study into the use of feverfew and ginger for migraine. Researchers at the Headache Care Centre in Springfield, Missouri gave a group of volunteers a feverfew and ginger preparation whilst a control group was given a placebo. Initial indications were that the feverfew and ginger preparation had a noticeable effect in reducing pain but as the survey sample size was too small the results cannot be considered conclusive. Fortunately I've never suffered from migraine but I know people who do and so I hope that this treatment turns out to be a success.

How do you increase your agricultural production in an Indian drought zone? How do you harvest ginger out of season following a poor monsoon? You simply install irrigation. But not just any old irrigation system. The India Tribune has reported that Gujarat and its neighbouring states are reaping the benefits of the Sardar Sarovar project, first conceived in the 1940s by Nehru, whereby a huge dam and reservoir feed an extensive network of canals and sub-canals. It's hard to believe that it has taken so long to build but I suppose that a project of this scale must be extremely expensive for any country or donor agency to undertake.

DEHP Contamination, English Ginger, Tariffs and Bangladeshi Ginger

The E.coli outbreak centred in Germany is not the only food contamination alert making the news this week. Although not on the same scale, the US Food and Drug Administration is monitoring certain food products, including ginger clam tablets, imported from Taiwan. These products, believed to have come from over 180 manufacturers, contain DEHP, a chemical used as a plasticiser in the medical equipment industry. DEHP has been used before in beverages as a clouding agent to give the product, such as a fruit juice, a cloudy and therefore more natural appearance. Other countries known to be affected include the Philippines, Vietnam and Hong Kong. This reminds me of the Prohibition era in 1920s and 1930s America when a different plasticiser was added to Jake, a Jamaican ginger extract.

A joint venture between Sharp’s Brewery and the Eden Project has resulted in a beer containing English ginger. Yes, you did read that correctly. English ginger! Launched at the beginning of June, Honey Gold is a summer seasonal golden beer brewed with five varieties of hops, honey and spices including ginger which has been grown at the Eden Project. I don't think that the Indians and the Chinese need lose any sleep over this new addition to the list of ginger producing countries. Both the brewery and the Eden Project are based in Cornwall in south west England.

Last week I wrote about Fijian government's programme for resettling squatters. The Fiji Times has reported that the 20 families, with an estimated population of 100 between them, should be producing $90,000 of ginger after just five months.

I read something the other day and now I can't remember the link to it. I think it was all about encouraging women farmers to diversify into speciality crops like ginger. The talk was held under the auspices of the Pennsylvania Women's Agricultural Network at Penn State University. I'm sure that it mentioned that the ginger would have to be grown in polytunnels. Recently I mentioned that grants are available for growing ginger in Indiana. It is interesting how ginger cultivation is moving away from the tropics.

A press release from the Philippine Information Agency (PIA) was released recently detailing the proceedings of the first Provincial Farmers and Fisherfolk Congress in Samar Province. This congress was a significant event as fishing and farming are the principal economic activities in Samar. Of particular interest to me was the call from the provincial governor to consider moving into ginger farming. The governor said that there was a big market for this crop and that a foreign business partner was ready to purchase 200 tons of ginger per month. Encouragement indeed! The main markets for Filipino ginger are the UK, Germany, Japan and Hong Kong.

Last week I reported that the Sri Lankan government is offering subsidies to enable the country to become self-sufficient in ginger. The government is now ready to impose tariff barriers to encourage and protect ginger production. Presumably the government will not be too concerned about tit for tat tariffs on their ginger exports as the aim is to reduce imports and not increase exports.

Bangladesh announced that this year's prospective ginger yield in Nilphamari district is looking fairly good. This district produces more than 50% of the country's total ginger output. This year's cultivation is slightly lower than last year and government sources are concerned that future cultivation will be reduced even further because virus-free seed is not available. Maybe this is an area which should be a focus for foreign aid.