Nepal is third largest producer of ginger in the world

Nepal retains third spot of the world largest producer of ginger after India and China. Nepal produced 255,208 tons of ginger to retain that spot in 2012. According to the statistics of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations output jumped 17.99 percent in 2012. India and China were the top producers of ginger with 703,000 tons and 462,500 tons respectively. Total 12.18 percent of share is covered by Nepal in the world, while she covers 21.39 percent of share in South Asia.

SN	Name of Country	Outputs ( In tons)
1	India	703,000
2	China	462,500
3	Nepal	255,208
4	Nigeria	156,000
5	Thailand	150,000
6	Indonesia	113,851
7	Bangladesh	72,084
8	Japan	55,000
9	Cameroon	41,000
10	Philippines	27,631

                                      Source: FAO

Asian countries top the list with 8 out of 10 countries in producing ginger. In South Asia, Bangladesh produced 72,084 tons which is followed by Sri Lanka with 13,360 tons, Bhutan with 4,533 tons and Pakistan with 8 tons. The output of ginger in 2011 was 2.03 million tons and it became 2.09 million tons. There has been an increment of ginger production area in Nepal, according to statistics of Food and Agriculture Organization, Nepal has increased the farming land of ginger by 1175 hectares to make 20,256 hectares of land in 2012, and it was 19,081 hectares in 2011 and 9,189 hectares in 2008. Bumping market demand is the main reason behind increased production, ginger prices have increased more than two times this year. Major ginger producing districts of Nepal are Ilam, Palpa, Makwanpur, Jhapa, Sunsari and Morang.

SN	Name of Districts
1	Ilam
2	Palpa
3	Makwanpur
4	Jhapa
5	Sunsari
6	Morang

Fig. (Major ginger producing district in Nepal)
Ginger is commonly used by the Aurveda pharmaceutical industry; it is also used for making sauce, candy, jelly and jam, so 98 percent of Nepali ginger exported to the southern neighbor. Nepal earned Rs 1.33 billion from ginger export in 2012; it was just Rs 507 million in 2011.
The United States of America, Saudi Arabia, United Kingdom, Japan and Spain are the largest consumers of ginger in the world.
Nepal is the third highest producer in the world but market price of ginger in Nepal is quite high and constantly we are facing shortage of ginger in Nepali market especially in Dashain, Tihar and other festivals of Nepal. The average wholesale price of ginger in Nepali market is Rs 116 per kg, the retail price of ginger is Rs 160. The cost of production of ginger is Rs 30-35 per kg.  Though, Nepal’s ginger is good in quality, Nepali ginger has not been able to get better market price in international market due to soil content and unsystematic labeling. So we can adopt following strategy to get better price in international market.
a) Ginger should be without soil content
b) It should be clean
c) It should be systematically labeled
If producer considers above points we can get better market price in international market and we can earn more foreign currency from it, which may help in national economy.