Though cardamom prices have seen a huge rise in recent months, the benefits have been limited only to big traders. Govinda Poudel, a cardamom trader in Birtamod, said small time farmers and even small traders are facing shortage of cardamom at this time of year. [break]
“Only big traders, who have cardamom in stock, are benefiting from this price rise,” Poudel added. He informed myrepublica.com that he recently sold cardamom at Rs 1,375 per kg.
Cardamom is produced during August/September and September/October. This year the price of cardamom increased as most of the farmers sold their produce as soon as they harvested it.
Prem Bhandari of Naya Bazaar-8 in Ilam sold 2,000 kg of cardamom last October at just Rs 400 per kg. “I had produced 4,800 kgs of cardamom this season. I sold 2,000 kg at Rs 400 kg in October. I got Rs 600 per kg for the rest in December,” Bhandari added.
Rise in prices do not bring much cheers to small time farmers because they sell their produce as soon as they harvest it. “We have no option but to sell our produce as soon as we harvest it because we usually get stuffs from nearby traders on credit,” Dambar Bahadur Phago of Lungrupa-4 in Panchthar said.
Farmers had assumed that the price would touch Rs 750 per kg this year and most of them cleared their stock during the second week of April, when the price was nearing Rs 750 per kg.
“I sold most of my produce at Rs 600 per kg. I sold the remaining 80 kg when the price hit Rs 750 per kg,” Buddha Bir Rai, a cardamom farmer in Jogmai-3 said.
Cardamom price had touched Rs 500 per kg about a decade ago. But the price had cooled down to settle at around Rs 100 per kg.
Cardamom trader Govinda Poudel said only big traders have cardamom in stock and they are the ones that are benefiting from the rise in prices. “Farmers and small time traders can’t afford to face loss. So they sell off their stock when they think the price is good. This year they didn’t have to face loss,” he said.
Ajay Adhikari, chief of Cardamom Development Center (CDC) at Phikkal, said the exorbitant rise in cardamom prices this year was due to production lags owing to drought and disease. “Cardamom production has declined by 30 percent in Ilam and Panchthar due to different diseases,” he added.
Ilam also saw decline in production by 261 tons this year. The district had produced 7,087 tons of cardamom last year, according to CDC.
Cardamom is cultivated in about 12,360 hectares of land in Ilam, Panchthar, Taplejung, Sankhuwasabha, Tehrathum and Dhankuta.
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