Question

Why nutmeg price was to costly as gold

Answer 1

Nutmeg prices are have declined sharply in the domestic market on slack demand while they remained outpriced in the world market, blocking the commodity’s export potential.

“Indian nutmeg is trading $1,500 higher than Indonesia. At this level even origin-specific buyers have switched to Indonesia because their quality is far superior to the Indian variety,” said Anand Kishor, IPSTA President and Proprietor, Kuruwa Enterprises.

Indian nutmeg is priced at $8,600 a tonne. As against this Sri Lankan produce is traded at $8,000 a tonne. Indonesia is offering its produce at $7,250 a tonne, he said.

Harvesting in India has begun and total production of nutmeg with shell is estimated to be 15,000 tonnes. Of this the shell weight comes to 30 per cent and thus the total output without shell would come to around 9,500 tonnes. Mace production is estimated at 1,000 tonnes, he said.

Answer 2

Because it was only grown in a few places in Asia and transporting shipments was expensive and the journeys long and dangerous. There were two routes back - one was overland from Asia cutting up from the Red Sea into the eastern Mediterranean, the other was around Africa and the Cape. Both were long and fraught with danger - either robbers, pirates or simply bad weather. 

Nutmeg is native to the Bandai islands of Indonesia. When the Portuguese rounded the Cape of Good Hope in Africa in the late 1400s, they took control of the spice trade because they could transport nutmeg far more cheaply in the hold of a ship than it could be transported by caravan. Soon the Dutch became the predominant traders of this precious spice. At the time, the only source of nutmeg was on Run Island. Because the British also wanted in on the lucrative trade there were many struggles between the British and the Dutch over control of the Island, and therefore colonial competition affected trade.