Factors Affecting Ginger Production in Sunsari District, Nepal

Abstract

A study was conducted in Bishnupaduka and Panchkanya of Sunsari district from February to May, 2019 with the objective to study factors affecting ginger production. Purposive selection of the site was done. For the study, eighty ginger growers were selected using simple random sampling method. Well-designed questionnaire was administered to the growers for primary data collection after pretesting it. Secondary data was obtained through journals, research articles, publications and reports. Key Informant Interview with progressive farmers, farmer leaders, manager of private farms and local extension workers was conducted along with questionnaire survey. The obtained data was analyzed using computer software packages like: MS Excel and SPSS. Indexing technique was used for qualitative data to rank each problem. Correlation coefficient tested the strength of relationship between various dependent and independent variables. The study showed that educational status, time of planting, planting distance, types of farming and training had positive and significant relationship with the level of production while seed treatment and crop rotation had positive but highly significant relationship with the level of production, each having Chi-square value of 18.42. Similarly, seed quantity, manure quantity, frequency of weeding, labor cost, family size, land size under ginger cultivation and experience on ginger farming were found to have positive and significant correlation with the level of production with Pearson correlation coefficient of 0.22, 0.271, 0.203, 0.208, 0.22, 0.253 and 0.26 respectively while the age of the respondents was found to be negatively correlated with the level of production with the Pearson correlation coefficient as-0.25. Similarly, price was also found to be a determining factor influencing the level of production as well. Further, the prevalence of rhizome rot disease was found to be the bottleneck in ginger cultivation. Also, obtaining quality planting materials, proper irrigation facilities, lack of quality inputs, labor crisis were identified as other major problems during ginger production. Ginger is one of the promising high value spice crops having a large production and export potential for Nepal [1]. Ginger (Zingiber officinale) is a monocotyledonous, herbaceous tropical plant belonging to the family Zingiberaceae [2]. It is a flowering plant whose rhizome is widely used as spice either in its fresh form or dry form or used for various other medicinal purposes [3]. It is used in the preparation of pickles, candy, squash, powder, sutho (dried ginger), and beverages. Dried form of ginger contains 15% aromatic oil, 6% oleoresin while the fresh form contains 12.3% carbohydrate, 2.3% protein and 0.9% fats and some amount of vitamins and minerals [4]. It also helps in preventing nausea, asthma, cancer, migraine, constipation, cold, blanching, cholesterol and blood pressure. Ginger farming is the main source of income for the peasants of mid-hills in Nepal who derive their living from fragmented p...

Factors Affecting Turmeric Production in Sunsari District, Nepal

“…Best of Average Turmeric production, production was categorized as high and low, and their relationships of individual production level to different socio-economic factors were analyzed using the Chisquare test (χ2). Chi-square test (χ2) was used to show the association between two categorized variables while the correlation was used to show the relationship between two continuous variables (Ghimire et al, 2019;Mahat et al, 2019).…”