Cardamom Industry in Bhutan

The cardamom industry in Bhutan is built almost entirely around large cardamom (Amomum subulatum), a perennial herbaceous plant in the ginger family (Zingiberaceae) known in Dzongkha and Nepali as elaichi or alaichi. It is a distinct species from the green or "true" cardamom (Elettaria cardamomum) grown in South India, Sri Lanka, and Guatemala. Large cardamom produces bigger, dark brown capsules with a smoky aroma derived from traditional wood-fired curing, and it is used in North Indian, Nepali, Bhutanese, Tibetan, and Middle Eastern cooking, in spice blends such as garam masala, in Ayurvedic preparations, and in the flavour and fragrance industry.^[1]

Production is concentrated in Samtse, Chhukha, Sarpang, Dagana, Tsirang, and Samdrup Jongkhar, with smaller holdings at higher elevations in Trongsa, Zhemgang, and parts of Haa. Samtse alone has accounted for roughly two-thirds of national output in recent years. Across the eastern Himalayas, large cardamom is a specialty crop of Nepal, Sikkim, Darjeeling–Kalimpong, and southern Bhutan, and Bhutan has consistently ranked as the third-largest producer after Nepal (around 52–68 per cent of global output, depending on the year and source) and India (around 22–37 per cent). Estimates of Bhutan's share range from about 9 to 11 per cent of world production.^[2]

The crop is deeply tied to the agricultural history of southern Bhutan and, in particular, to the Lhotshampa community of Nepali-speaking farmers who settled the southern belt from the late nineteenth century onward. Academic studies of the pre-1990 southern agrarian economy — including work by the anthropologist Michael Hutt — describe cardamom, citrus, and paddy as the core of Lhotshampa household livelihoods before the displacements of the early 1990s. Many cardamom plots were abandoned during that period, and the industry has never fully recovered its pre-crisis footprint.^[3]

Botany and agronomy

Large cardamom is a shade-loving understorey plant that grows in clumps of tall, reed-like pseudostems two to three metres in height. Flower spikes emerge at the base of the plant, and the fertilised flowers develop into capsules containing aromatic black seeds. The crop is suited to humid subtropical and warm-temperate zones at elevations of roughly 600 to 2,000 metres, with 2,000–3,500 millimetres of annual rainfall. It performs best under partial forest canopy, traditionally in association with Alnus nepalensis (Himalayan alder), a fast-growing nitrogen-fixing tree that improves soil fertility and provides the right level of filtered light. Other common shade trees include Schima wallichii and mixed broadleaf species.^[4]

A plantation takes three to four years to produce its first harvest and can remain productive for fifteen to twenty years under good management before replanting is needed. Harvesting takes place between August and November, when the capsules are picked by hand — a labour-intensive operation that coincides with the monsoon and is complicated by heavy rain, leeches, and steep terrain. Because cardamom is grown in agroforestry systems that retain existing tree cover, it serves as a dual-purpose crop: it generates cash income while conserving soil, protecting watersheds, and reducing pressure to convert forest to open cropland. This ecological fit has made it a flagship example of compatible production in Bhutan's broader conservation strategy.^[1]

History of cultivation in Bhutan

Large cardamom appears to have entered southern Bhutan in the late nineteenth century, spreading from eastern Nepal and Sikkim with the movement of Nepali-speaking settlers into the Bhutanese foothills. By the middle of the twentieth century it was established as a household cash crop across the southern belt. During the planned modernisation begun under the third king, Jigme Dorji Wangchuck, the Department of Agriculture identified cardamom as a promising export commodity and began providing extension services, nursery material, and advice on curing.

The political crisis of the late 1980s and early 1990s had a profound effect on the industry. The expulsion or flight of an estimated 80,000 to 100,000 Lhotshampa from southern Bhutan left many cardamom plots without caretakers. Plantations went untended, disease pressure built up, and some land was later redistributed to resettled northern Bhutanese families who had limited experience of cardamom agronomy. Rebuilding the institutional knowledge and labour networks that the pre-crisis community had developed has been a slow process, and several long-established growing areas never returned to their earlier output levels.^[3] These accounts draw primarily on refugee testimonies, HRW documentation, and academic fieldwork; Bhutan-based media have covered the agricultural side of the story more than the displacement itself.

From the 2000s onwards, successive Five Year Plans have positioned cardamom as a priority crop for rural development in the south, and programmes under the Ministry of Agriculture and Forests have funded improved planting material, farm roads, improved curing chambers, and cooperative marketing trials.^[5]

Growing districts

Samtse is by a wide margin Bhutan's largest cardamom-producing district, and in some years has supplied around 65 per cent of the national crop. In 2024, Samtse recorded approximately 252 metric tonnes, ahead of Dagana, Sarpang, and Tsirang. Chhukha contributes significant volume, particularly from gewogs in the Phuentsholing hinterland, while Samdrup Jongkhar supplies eastern output that moves across the border into Assam. Smaller but agronomically interesting plots at higher elevations in Dagana, Tsirang, Trongsa, Zhemgang, and parts of Haa round out the national picture.^[6]

Production trends and the post-2020 decline

National cardamom production has varied widely from year to year. Older studies and development-partner reports referenced peak figures of roughly 3,000 to 5,500 metric tonnes in the best years, on an estimated 6,000 to 8,000 hectares of plantation area. More recent statistics show a sharp downward trend. The National Statistics Bureau's 2024 agriculture survey recorded total cardamom output of about 1,122 metric tonnes, down from roughly 2,175 metric tonnes in 2020 — a fall of nearly half in four years. Ginger has overtaken cardamom as the largest-volume spice crop in the same period, reaching 3,386 metric tonnes in 2024.^[7]

Researchers and development agencies attribute the decline to a combination of disease pressure, ageing plantations that have passed peak productivity, climate stress, and labour shortages driven by rural out-migration to Thimphu, Phuentsholing, and overseas destinations, particularly Australia. Production figures should be read as indicative rather than definitive — there is substantial year-on-year volatility, and older headline figures of "3,000 to 5,500 tonnes" appear to have overstated the medium-term trend.

Processing, curing, and quality

After harvest, fresh cardamom capsules must be cured quickly to prevent spoilage. The traditional method uses a bhatti — a wood-fired curing chamber in which pods are dried over several days by direct smoke and radiant heat. The process gives Himalayan large cardamom its characteristic smoky flavour, which distinguishes it from sun-dried or mechanically dried product. It is also inefficient: traditional bhattis consume large quantities of fuelwood, produce uneven drying, and expose workers to smoke and heat. Studies in Sikkim and Bhutan have documented significant fuelwood use per kilogram of cured cardamom and associated pressure on nearby forests.^[8]

Improved curing technologies — including flue-pipe bhattis, Improved Cardamom Dryers (ICDs), electric dryers, and solar dryers — have been introduced through projects supported by the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), and the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC). Adoption has been gradual, constrained by the capital cost of the new chambers and by farmer familiarity with traditional methods. Grading and quality certification through the Bhutan Agriculture and Food Regulatory Authority (BAFRA) is another work in progress; Bhutanese cardamom reaching export markets is still sold mostly in bulk rather than as graded, branded product.^[9]

Exports and markets

The overwhelming majority of Bhutan's cardamom output is exported. India is the dominant buyer — the trade moves through the southern border crossings at Phuentsholing, Gelephu, and Samdrup Jongkhar — and the price received by Bhutanese farmers is effectively set at the Siliguri auction market in West Bengal, the main trading hub for eastern Himalayan large cardamom. From Siliguri, the spice moves into the wider Indian spice trade and is re-exported to Pakistan, the Gulf states, and other Middle Eastern markets, where it is valued for use in rice dishes, tea, and traditional medicine. Smaller volumes move directly to Bangladesh.^[10]

Because Bhutanese exporters are price-takers in this system, the local market is acutely exposed to swings in Indian and Nepali supply. In strong seasons, farmgate prices in southern Bhutan have exceeded Nu 1,500 per kilogram of dried capsules; in weak seasons they have dropped below Nu 500 per kilogram, barely covering harvest and curing costs. Recent global price spikes — driven partly by crop losses in India — have been reported at well above USD 20 per kilogram on international markets, but Bhutanese smallholders capture only a fraction of that value because of limited direct export access and a near-total absence of domestic processing into oils, oleoresins, or branded consumer products.

Disease, pests, and climate

Two viral diseases, chirke (also written chirkey, a mosaic-type virus) and foorkey (a stunt virus transmitted by aphids), have devastated large cardamom plantations across the eastern Himalayas since at least the 1980s. Infected plants show reduced flowering, malformed capsules, and eventual death; there is no effective treatment, and the only reliable control is sanitation — removing infected clumps and using disease-free planting material. Fungal pressures, including Colletotrichum leaf blight, compound the problem. The combined effect of chirke and foorkey has been identified by ICIMOD and Bhutanese agronomists as the single biggest constraint on production recovery.^[1]

Climate change is a growing concern. Bhutanese researchers and farmers have reported earlier and more erratic monsoon onset, heat spells outside normal ranges, and shifts in the elevation bands where cardamom performs well — trends consistent with the broader patterns documented in Bhutan's climate profile and by the National Centre for Hydrology and Meteorology. A study of black cardamom cultivation in mountainous Bhutan, published in 2022, documented farmer perceptions of declining yields linked to climate and economic stress in the southern belt.^[11]

Policy, research, and cooperatives

Cardamom has been named a priority cash crop in successive Five Year Plans, most recently under the 12th Plan agricultural diversification strategy. Research is coordinated through the Renewable Natural Resources Research and Development Centre (RNR-RDC) network, with Samtse hosting field trials on planting material and disease management. The National Plant Protection Centre supports surveillance of chirke and foorkey and related outbreaks. BAFRA manages quality and phytosanitary certification for export consignments, and the Ministry of Agriculture and Forests has experimented with cardamom growers' cooperatives in Samtse and Sarpang aimed at improving bargaining power against Indian buyers.^[5]

Bhutan's broader aspiration to develop organic agriculture — articulated through the National Organic Programme and the government's goal, announced in the early 2010s, of transitioning to fully organic production — sits naturally with cardamom, because most Bhutanese plantations already use minimal or no synthetic inputs. Formal certification has been patchy, and the practical gains for farmers depend on whether certified product can reach premium markets willing to pay a meaningful organic differential. Geographical indication (GI) registration, following the model of Darjeeling tea, has been discussed as a way to capture more value for Bhutanese cardamom as a distinctive origin product, but no Bhutan-specific GI for large cardamom has been registered as of early 2026.

Lhotshampa agrarian heritage

The historical association between large cardamom and the Lhotshampa community in southern Bhutan is well documented in academic and human-rights literature. Pre-1990 household economies in the south combined cardamom, mandarin oranges, paddy, and cattle, with cardamom providing most of the cash income. According to Michael Hutt's work on the Lhotshampa and to Human Rights Watch's 2007 report on the refugee crisis, many families who ended up in UNHCR camps in eastern Nepal had been cardamom growers before they fled or were expelled.^[3] Officially, Bhutanese government accounts have placed less emphasis on this connection, describing cardamom as a regional agricultural tradition shared across southern districts. Both framings are accurate in their own terms; the association with the Lhotshampa community is historically real, but cardamom is also cultivated today by farmers from a wider range of ethnic backgrounds.

Outlook

The medium-term outlook for Bhutan's cardamom industry depends on whether farmers can rebuild production after the post-2020 decline. The key variables are disease control (particularly progress against chirke and foorkey), replanting of ageing plots with cleaner stock, adoption of improved curing technology, access to processing and branding that captures more value at home, and the retention of labour in the southern belt against the pull of urban and overseas migration. Climate stress is likely to complicate all of these, particularly at lower elevations. Cardamom's agroforestry fit, its high value per kilogram, and its cultural roots in southern Bhutan suggest that it will remain important for rural livelihoods in Samtse, Sarpang, Dagana, and Tsirang; whether it regains its earlier scale is an open question.

See also

• Agriculture in Bhutan
• Economy of Bhutan
• Lhotshampa
• Bhutanese refugee crisis
• Climate of Bhutan
• Samtse District
• Bhutan Agriculture and Food Regulatory Authority

References

1. "Reviving and sustaining large cardamom production." International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD).
2. "Status of large cardamom in Nepal: Trend of production, marketing and global scenario." Archives of Agriculture and Environmental Science.
3. "Last Hope: The Need for Durable Solutions for Bhutanese Refugees in Nepal and India." Human Rights Watch, 2007.
4. Sharma, G., Partap, U., et al. Large Cardamom Farming in the Eastern Himalayas. Springer, 2020.
5. Ministry of Agriculture and Forests, Royal Government of Bhutan.
6. "Statistical Yearbook of Bhutan." National Statistics Bureau.
7. "Bhutan reports higher vegetable production in 2024." FreshPlaza, summarising the NSB 2024 Agriculture Survey.
8. "A study of large-cardamom curing chambers in Sikkim." Biomass and Bioenergy.
9. Bhutan Agriculture and Food Regulatory Authority (BAFRA).
10. "Large cardamom prices hit near-record levels." The Kathmandu Post, 12 November 2024.
11. "Cultivation of Black Cardamom and Climate, Economic and Management Challenges in Mountainous Regions of Bhutan." ResearchGate, 2022.
12. "Commodity Chain Analysis of Large Cardamom in Bhutan." ResearchGate.
13. "Cardamom replacing paddy in drought areas." The Bhutanese.