Cardamom Cultivation in Eastern Hill Nepal (A Case Study of Phaktep VDC of Panchthar District)

Abstract

Phaktep is one of the pioneer VDCs of cardamom farming in Panchthar district where cardamom is cultivated in about 850hec. of land and average production gets amounted to Rs. 2.50million per year (DDC report). Cardamom cultivation started in this area in 2031/032BS. It’s cultivated in fertile & marginal land in the beginning but at present farmers cultivate cardamom in rice field and dry field. Cardamom is a shade-loving crop which is generally grown at an attitude of 1000m-2000m and with an annual rainfall of 60-70inches. The temperature on the other hand should not rise above 25 0 C. Theoretically, south facing slope & humid places are important for cardamom cultivation. But there is adverse relationship between cardamom price & productions. Cardamom producers are always exploited by cardamom buyers. The fluctuation in the market price directly affects the production of cardamom. On the other hand, there are various channels of cardamom collection in our country such as, the producers, local businessmen, dealers, wholesalers and exporters to overseas etc. The benefits brought by cardamom cultivation dominate economic environment, and social fronts. With regard to income, its position is placed in first. The economics return is always vacillating. Due to production price of cardamom fluctuates. Basically Cardamom brings forth income. More than 60% of firewood is fulfilled from the cardamom cultivation areas. The cardamom of Nepal is still considered of worse quality, than of other countries, because of unscientific method of drying system. Systematic and modernized drying system is limited only in Ilam as well as Darjeeling district of India. The Nepalese cardamom is considered superior in volatile oil content. Agriculture in the hilly and mountainous areas of Nepal is subsistence oriented. The primary objectives of this farming in the areas (it means, to sell agriculture product and buy necessary goods) are therefore, to meet family consumption requirements like salt, kerosene and clothes. This subsistent

nature of agriculture system of the hill and mountain has given rise to the integrated systems such as livestock, horticulture and agro forestry and it constitutes the basic component or subsystem of the overall agriculture system of the area. The broad objective of the study is to shed-light on the development and the past performance of cardamom cultivation in Nepal. With a view to the above stated objective, the research carried out detailed study of different aspects of cardamom cultivation in theory and in practice with special reference to the particular research area. Analyses the overall socio-economic condition of the cardamom cultivators Phaktep VDC. To examine the marketing condition as well as prospect of cardamom cultivation in the study area. Cardamom cultivation is flourishing particularly in the eastern part of Nepal over the years. Therefore, this study is concentrated in Phaktep VDC of Panchthar district. Being an inhabitant of the village the researcher became very much interested in studying about cardamom cultivation because it is cultivated everywhere in Panchthar district. The present study is a descriptive one. The descriptive research design is more appropriate to describe & analyze the quantitative as well as quantitative primary data collected through different techniques of data collection. Phaktep VDC of Panchthar district was selected as the study area. There are 725 households in all 9 wards of this VDC (Village profile 2067). A list of cardamom cultivation in the VDC was made available in VDC office. As a resident, the researcher is familiar with the set- ting of the VDC. The ward no. 4,5,6,7,8 wards have 75,96,68,80 & 136 households, total 455 households where cardamom has first been cultivated. They were selected purposively for the convince of data collection. After acquiring the list of cardamom farmers about 36 households sample size was taken from the wards and selected randomly by lottery method. According to the CAA report Panchthar occupied 5 2065 among the eleven cardamom producing districts. The main cardamom producing VDCs are Oyam, Ravi, Sarangdanda, Phaktep, th position in

Chyangthapu. Phaktep VDC (study area) is the pioneer VDC of Panchthar district where cardamom cultivation has been practising 20 years back. The living standard of cardamom farmers have been gradually raising since cardamom production began in the study area. According to farmers due to the increased of income they have maintaining their health by medicine and able to buy water pipe, electricity, changed tin-roof instead of straw- strutted their roofs. There is no sufficient water facility so farmers have to manage themselves for irrigation in the dry season. Large canal scale of irrigation (Kulo) is not suitable because of sloppy land feature on the hill. Chhirke Furke and clump damage are the main diseases of cardamom, Gobaro and Jhusilekira (Nepali name) are also harmful pets. Rato Kala(Nepali name) is also harmful for cardamom during the harvesting time. Phaktep VDC is one of the pioneers VDC of cardamom cultivation in Panchthar district where cardamom is cultivated in about 1600 hec. of land and average production amounted to Rs. 2 million per year (Panchthar UBS). Cardamom cultivation started in this area 2031/032 BS because of its cultivated in waste and marginal land in the beginning but now its cultivated in rice field and dry field. Nepal has to increase agriculture cash crops like cardamom to meet the rapid rate of growth of population growing features of industrialization, unfavourable balance of trade which demand for the rapid growth rate of capital formation increasing awareness in economic growth. Therefore, agricultural economy such as Nepal should play a vital part in initial phase of economic development.