ABSTRACT
Once upon a time spices were often equated with gold and precious stones. Now, they are no longer luxury items, but have high demand with growing importance. With increasing health consciousness in people around the world this trend continues to be consistent. The communication revolution and demand-driven market dynamics recreate the situation favourable to the innovators with greater competitiveness in certain areas like organic spices, encapsulated spices, spice blends and different other forms of food supplements. Technology in many spheres integrating biology, physics, chemistry, physiology, nuclear science, biotechnology, nanotechnology, geographic information system (GIS) and bioinformatics paves the way for the scientists, researchers, growers, investors and policymakers to go hand in hand towards sustainability with a deterministic and futuristic vision. However, certain obvious changes such as change in physical and intrinsic qualities of the inputs, change in climate, change in market components and even change in human preferences over space and time are creating issues and taking us into situations which offer stiff challenges. All these necessitate formulation of future strategies to bring underutilized spices out of their niche role.
