Fungling. Farmers in Taplejung are busy picking cardamom. In the main season of Tipai, they are enjoying more in the garden than in the festival of Dashain and Tihar. The farmers, who work in the orchards from morning to evening, have started staying in the kiln most of the night.

Roshan Limbu, a farmer of Faktanglung Rural Municipality-6, said that only a few members of the farmers who have cattle return home in the evening, while the rest stay in the orchards. He said that if he lost the time to pick cardamom, he would be busy with the plantation as the year’s hard work would be wasted.

Khangdu Sherpa, a farmer of Phungling Municipality-7, has been living in his orchard for the past one month. He has been celebrating Dashain with his family in the garden and is also preparing to celebrate Tihar there. “I have been cultivating cardamom for forty years. “We started by bringing saplings from Sikkim of India. ’

Sherpa has a plan to cultivate 80 ropanis of orchards. However, he said it will take more than a week to release, dry and prepare in the furnace after harvesting. Cardamom harvesting is practiced in the valley area of the district from the first week of August and in the hilly region till November.

Of the nine local levels in the district, cardamom farming is done in all wards except Olangchungola of Faktanglung-7. Currently, commercial farming is taking place on around 4,450 hectares of land. The price of cardamom is also encouraging the farmers. According to Kamal Baral, a local entrepreneur, the price of 40 kg of khalaichi is Rs 88,000 per maund.

Cardamom has also created jobs. Plantation workers earn between Rs 500 and Rs 700 per day.