, he left the occupation and started driving. “In fact, this was a lucrative business for me. We had a large farm and used to earn more than 3 lacs in a year. But with the slow down in cardamom production, our family left this farming and I also took to this driving,” Lepcha said. Not only Dup Tshering, but 60 per cent  of cardamom cultivators in the state have left this farming and are switching to other forms of farming over this crop.

Large cardamom is an important cash crop of Sikkim. It has high demand for its flavour and fragrance in food and hotel industries and perfumeries. Sikkim is the world’s largest producer of large cardamom and is holding a share of 85% of the Indian market. Its cultivation is mainly confined to the sub-Himalayan region in Sikkim and Darjeeling district of West Bengal. The area under large cardamom cultivation in Sikkim during 2000-2001 was about 23,500 hectares with bearing orchards of 20,500 hectares producing 4,667 tonnes and yielding about 2233kg per hectare. However, since the last five years, the production of the spices reached less than half of the 2000-01 year’s production. With this, the farmers of this Himalayan state who were earning a handsome amount from this cash crop were rendered hopeless.

However, in the meantime, the hope of these farmers has started rising thanks to the effort of Spices Board, a department under Ministry of Commerce and Industry.

Dr. Utpal Gupta, Deputy Director (Research) said, “After the relentless efforts of our scientists, now we have been able to identify the disease called blight disease that causes the fungal disease Collectrotichum in cardamom. This research experiment was done at the Spices Board research farm at Panghtang and Kabi,” he said. He also said “The scientists have also invented bio-pesticides called Pacouldomonas and Bacillus which are to be used at the rate of 5 % in the initial stage of symptom of the disease. The bio-pesticides are applied 5 times at 15 days intervals.”

Also scientist Dr. AK Saju of the Spices Board said that the scientists had adopted two measures to fight the disease both applied at the nursery level. Use of Copper Oxicholrid is one way to prevent the spread of the disease. The second, Dr. Saju informed is by adoption of Bio-control agents which are distributed to farmers. The scheme has been extended to 4,833 beneficiaries with a total coverage of 4, 07,425 units across the state by Spices Board’s research wing.

Dr. Saju further informed that bad soil is also one of the reasons in the decline of the crops. He said that in the Sikkim and Darjeeling hills, soil has started experiencing micro-nutrient deficiency, an essential element for disease resistance. Another factor is the lack of micro-climate, which means providing sheds to at least 50 per cent of the cardamom bushes in the fields.

Dr. Gupta expressed hope that with this finding, there are chances that cardamom farming will re-flourish in the state and return to its former heights.

DB Rai