Restoring the Roots of the Global Spice Supply

Open any spice rack and it feels like there’s a jar for every type of cuisine around the world, but spices don’t just grow anywhere. Each thrives within a specific combination of soil, rainfall, and temperature, which is why spices have historically been grown in a handful of regions around the world, sometimes even in a single island chain. This narrow footprint helped build the spice trade, one of the oldest global supply chains in human history and connected farmers in remote regions to kitchens around the world.

Spices have long been valued for more than flavor. For centuries, cultures around the world have used them in both cooking and traditional medicine. For example, turmeric contains curcumin, a compound known for its anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties, while cinnamon and ginger have also been studied for their health benefits. Spices can also help maintain flavor while reducing additives offering another way to make healthier choices. 

Today, the challenge isn’t whether spices can continue to be grown but how they can be grown more resiliently. Around the world, farmers are finding new ways to protect and diversify the crops people rely on while restoring the ecosystems that support them.

Generations of Knowledge 

Before spices filled supermarket shelves, they connected people across continents from Southeast Asia to Europe. Farmers grew them, traders carried them across oceans, and communities built livelihoods around spices that became staples in cuisines around the world. 

Over time, the spice trade became an important source of livelihoods around the world. From cultivation and harvesting to processing and trade, spices pass through a network of people before reaching consumers. Only 46.5% of spices are consumed within the countries where they are produced, showing just how far this trade extends. Many spices are grown by smallholder farmers, making trade opportunities especially important to the communities where production begins. 

Behind Sri Lanka’s cinnamon industry is a network of people whose skills sustain its production. Around 250,000 cultivators and 400,000 peelers keep the industry running across the country. From tending the trees to carefully processing cinnamon by hand, each step depends on knowledge that has been refined over centuries. Today, more than 350,000 families are involved in cinnamon production alone. 

Growing on Familiar Ground

Healthy soil is the foundation of every spice harvest, but decades of growing a single crop in the same place can wear down soil health, making farms more vulnerable to extreme climate events like droughts and storms. 

Monoculture, or growing one crop across the same area year after year, reduces the variety of plants within a farm. With fewer plant species, there is also less food available for pollinators and wildlife. Repeatedly growing the same crop can deplete soil nutrients. Bringing different crops and trees back into these growing systems can help restore nutrients and improve the soil’s ability to hold water. 

Across vanilla and clove-growing regions, the shift to diverse, forest-based farming is already showing results. In Madagascar, which grows around 80% of the world’s vanilla, agroforests,  where crops are grown among trees, provide vanilla vines with the shade they need to grow. In the Sava region, restoring shade trees alongside vanilla vines can help rebuild tree cover. These growing systems can also help protect soil in regions exposed to storms like Cyclone Enawo, during which 68% of households in the rural villages of Mandena and Andrapengy faced crop losses including vanilla.  

Instead of relying on a single approach, farmers are diversifying how spices are cultivated. On Hiri Island in Ternate, Indonesia, clove trees are grown alongside coconut, nutmeg, and other crops allowing several crops to grow in the same area rather than cloves alone. Indonesia produces more than 70% of the world’s cloves, and in response to changing climate conditions, clove farmers are observing planting times and implementing new irrigation technology.

Planting for the Future 

Building a more resilient spice supply begins with the choices being made today. From diversifying crops to improving how they are processed, growers are finding new ways to prepare spice production for changing growing conditions. 

Cardamom grown alongside shade trees can benefit farms and the surrounding ecosystems, while providing the shaded, humid conditions the crop needs to grow. That matters even more in areas where farmers faced five consecutive years of drought between 2015 and 2019. Keeping trees within cardamom farms also maintains vegetation that might otherwise be cleared for cultivation. 

Preparing for the future also means reconsidering how crops are processed after they are harvested. In Guatemala, growers are moving away from wood-fired drying kilns used to process cardamom, which are linked to the loss of an estimated 3,192 hectares of forest per year. Alternatives like solar drying can reduce the amount of firewood needed to process the spice. 

Guatemala isn’t the only place where farmers are preparing for what comes next. In Grenada, nutmeg trees are particularly vulnerable to hurricane damage, leading farmers to diversify their farms with crops like tropical fruits and cocoa, rather than relying on nutmeg alone. Agroforestry also helps reduce the risk of pests and mitigate the effects of heat on crops. While each approach looks different, they show how investing in more diverse growing systems today can help create a stronger and more resilient spice supply for the future. 

The Future of Flavor 

The cultivation of spices relies on thriving biodiversity, the farmers who grow them, and the people who consume them. As farmers in the spice trade implement new, resilient agricultural practices, they’re supporting a movement towards restoring and protecting our ecosystems. Practices like growing crops alongside shade trees, rotating different crops to prevent monoculture, and much more are proving to be the next steps to stronger spice farming.

The future of spices is closely tied to our forests, farms, and communities. Stay tuned for more EARTHDAY.ORG articles exploring the connection between food and the environment, and discover how you can support global reforestation through EARTHDAY.ORG’s Canopy Tree Project, helping restore ecosystems one tree at a time. 

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