A Review on Status of Production of Large Cardamom in Nepal and its Marketing in National and Global Scenario

The study mainly focuses on the status of production and marketing of large cardamom in Nepal and also compares these dimensions in the context of different countries. For the study mainly secondary data were collected from research articles, reports, publications and news articles. Large cardamom is the third most expensive crop and one of the major cash crops of Nepal. Nepal is the largest producer of large cardamom in the world followed by India and Bhutan. Taplejung, Sankhuwasabha, Panchthar and Illam are the four major districts that contribute more than 80% of the national production. Cardamom produced in Nepal is graded according to tail cutting after drying and packed in jute bag or plastic to export it to foreign countries. Nepal exports almost 90 percentage of its total cardamom production to India. In the global scenario, Guatemala is the largest exporter of cardamom (small and large combined) followed by India, Nepal, Singapore and Indonesia respectievly. It was found that the production of cardamom is declining in Nepal due to price fluctuation and viral diseases such as Chirkey, Furkey. Problem such as absence of unique HS code for large cardamom and ‘duplicate large cardamom’ are also seen in the market.