Sustainability of rural supply chains in Nepal: selection, characterization and labelling of spices for the local market

The agricultural sector plays a major role in Nepal’s economy, contributing about one-third of the country’s Gross Domestic Product. Although subsistence farming still dominates agricultural production, high-value agriculture is currently emerging in Nepal: between 2008 and 2018, the proportion of farmland used for the production of high value crops like spices increased by 24%. However, Nepal has not yet been able to establish direct trade relationships with buyers in potential destination markets. This paper focuses on the project “Spices and sEEDs value chain improvement for rural development in Nepal, enhancing women and youth empowerment”, implemented by ASIA NGO and funded by AICS. The project aims at supporting small-scale farmers by improving agricultural production and the sale of seeds and spices of high commercial value. In particular, the project involved micro-enterprises with the purpose to introduce techniques and technologies for the production and preservation of local spices (i.e. ginger, cardamom, turmeric) destinated to the local market. This work focuses on the sustainability of rural supply chain of Nepali spices and the actions carried out aims at describe the action-research carried out by ARCO PIN-Unifi in order to introduce upgrading in the processes of selection, preservation and packaging/labelling of the selected spices. Spectrophotometric analysis are also carried out for the evaluation of polyphenols, flavonoids and antioxidant activity, in order to enhance the functional value of spices and for the preparation of data sheets, also useful for the possible export of the product. Within a perspective of improving of the technical and productive competencies and procedures, this study has been focused in particular on the following objectives: (1) to understand more about the existing procedures adopted by a sample of selected local farmers; (2) to conduct analytical evaluation of polyphenols and antioxidant properties of a sample of spices collected in the target area.