Its name, phiringi, means "foreigner", but this spice, useful for controlling diabetes, relieving constipation and improving digestion and appetite, has been developed by Bangladeshi agricultural scientists. There had been no registered variety of this spice of the Fabaceae family in the country.

After six years of research, a team at the Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute (BARI) developed a high-yielding variety in 2019, named BARI Phiringi-1. This year the Ministry of Agriculture's seed board approved it for cultivation. Farmers in scattered places grow mixed phiringi, used as one of the five spices in panch phoron, but not enough, so the scientists developed the variety.

Eight scientists led by scientific officer Mst Shamsunnahar Mahmuda at the Spice Research Centre in Bogura developed it. Phiringi seed resembles fenugreek, but plant growth and pod shape differ.

Its leaves and fruit are used like fenugreek, Mahmuda said. In Bangladesh the seeds with pods are used in panch phoron; in India it is known as "kasuri methi", and the leaves are dried and grown commercially. Seed has been given to farmers, but it is not yet grown commercially in Bangladesh. It flavours curries, pickles and chutneys and has medicinal value. Oil from the seed has various uses, but Bangladesh lacks machines to extract it.

Plants are 22 to 35 cm tall with five to six primary branches and 360 to 460 pods each, with eight to ten dry, yellowish-brown seeds per pod. It is almost disease-free. A thousand seeds weigh 1.1 to 1.2 grams and the crop takes 90 to 100 days. It yields 1.6 to 1.9 tonnes of pods and 0.4 to 0.5 tonnes of seed per hectare. A Rabi crop, it is sown in November and harvested two to two and a half months later, at the end of January or early February.

"Phiringi" was the name given to the Portuguese, who came to trade in spices; the spice probably arrived with them.

Source: Amader Shomoy. First published in Bengali on The Agro News.