Agarwood Prospects

State chief secretary Ravi Kota has said that after tea and oil, Assam should be globally known for agarwood, which he reportedly described as another “precious” wealth. As reported on the front page of the Sunday edition of this newspaper, the chief secretary has also stated that the climate and landscape of Assam are best suited for agar tree plantations. It is a fact that perfume and essence produced from agarwood available in Assam have already generated high demand across the globe. While the chief secretary made these remarks at a function to inaugurate Assam’s first licensed agar perfume manufacturing unit on Saturday, what is to be kept in mind is that the agarwood trade in the state is still allegedly going on as an illegal business. It was in July 2019 that a cabinet decision taken by then-Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal approved the growing and cutting of agar and chandan trees on non-forest lands in order to promote the cultivation of these two precious trees in the state. The Sonowal cabinet had then also approved the setting up of an international trade centre for Agar in Golaghat. At that time, there were reports that suggested that the agarwood trade in Assam was a big-time illegal business involving transactions up to the tune of Rs 10,000 crore per annum. What is of significance is that though farmers, particularly in Golaghat, Karbi Anglong, and Nagaon districts, have taken to the cultivation of agar trees, a coterie of agarwood traders belonging to a particular community have been maintaining a stranglehold on the entire trade, including compelling the growers to part with their trees for peanuts. Moreover, there have been reports saying that there would be over 2,000 big and small distillation units in and around Hojai, from where the oil extracted from the wood finds its way to the international market, in the process depriving the state of precious and much-needed revenue. As has also been stated, the global agarwood chip market is slated to grow to USD 16.5 billion (about Rs 1.35 lakh crore) by 2034. Whether Assam would be able to take advantage of this or whether the indigenous farmers would be strangulated like the small tea growers have been, however, remains a big question.