Indian Sandalwood Market Trend

Abstract

Indian sandalwood (Santalum album L.) is being traded since the seventeenth century. The quantity of wood and oil supplied to different countries was huge during the last five decades. The price of wood and oil was concededly low due to increased production. As the production and the supply of wood decreased from the natural forest, there was a fluctuation in price; consequently, the price increased by many folds. Because of the high price of wood, some smaller industries, especially incense, started using synthetic substitutes. Since the past two decades, companies are growing sandalwood intensively under agroforestry conditions. Likely, there may not be much fluctuations in price for wood and oil, and many industries would revert to the use of sandalwood oil.