Factors influencing adoption of major post-harvest handling practices of large cardamom in Nepal

Abstract

The ecological settings in the Himalayan hills provide a unique opportunity to the farmers in Nepal to sell their large cardamom in the global market. However, little efforts are made about the adoption of profitable large cardamom post-harvest upgrading practices in the country. This paper examines and discusses about the adoption of important post-harvest practices of large cardamom in the Eastern Himalayan road corridor of Nepal. Semi-structured interviews with 300 large cardamom-producing farmers as well as focus group discussions were conducted in Taplejung district in 2019. A SUR logit was used to examine the factors influencing the adoption of five major post-harvest practices, such as, improved method of drying, curing, cleaning, tail cutting and grading based on size and color. The findings revealed that about one-third of the respondents had adopted improved method of drying whereas about three-fifth of the respondents (62%) adopted curing. Nearly three-fourth (73.3%) of them had followed the practice of cleaning cardamom. On the other hand only less than 5% of respondents reported that they had been adopting the practice of tail (calyx) cutting. The findings also revealed that the adoption of improved method of large cardamom drying was mostly driven by access to credit. Results from an adoption models identified experience, household income from large cardamom, commercial scale of production, risk averse, access to credit, and access to technical services as of positive contributors (p < 0.05) to the adoption of major post-harvest practices of large cardamom.

Keywords

• large cardamom
• post-harvest practices
• sur logit