Author:
Santosh Kumar Bhattarai, Suman Bhattarai and Udit Prakash Sigdel

Doi: 10.26480/fabm.01.2021.31.34

This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License CC BY 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited

A study on production economics and marketing of Large cardamom in Chainpur, Sankhuwasabha was conducted from December 2018 to June 2019. Altogether 60 farmers were selected randomly from the PMAMP Cardamom command area of Chainpur municipality of Sankhuwasabha. Besides, 12 traders were also selected. A focus group discussion, key informants interview (KII) and direct observations were carried out to generate primary data along with Household survey with the use of semi-structured pre-tested interview schedule for the study. The secondary data were collected from literature like reports and publications of different institutions. The yield of cardamom in the study area has fallen now by more than 50% than the maximum realized yield to 220 kg ha-1. Cardamom was found to be labor intensive in the study area. Coupled with low market price and low productivity, many farmers felt a loss. However, economic analysis of the area indicated the cardamom farming is profitable. The sensitivity analysis with 20% decrease in price also found the farming to be profitable and viable. The farming is labor intensive and the average annual production cost per hectare was NRs 50,124 considering hired labors only and NRs 74,358 considering both hired and family labor cost per hectare. Among many causes of decline in productivity, many farmers ranked disease as the most devastating. The monopoly of Indian marketers at Birtamod was considered as the topmost reason for price fluctuation. The study evolved the immediate need of crop management by disease control to increase production and marketing intervention for consistent price of the Large cardamom.