Women Home-Based Workers in Value Chains of Cardamom and Allo in Nepal

This 2018 study by HomeNet South Asia (HNSA) found that despite playing critical roles in the large cardamom and allo value chains, women home-based workers in Nepal are invisible and disadvantaged.

“In the large cardamom value chain, the work put in by the women, in the farming and processing stages, are crucial to the end product. And yet, women rarely manage to interact with traders nor do they have the bargaining power to command fair prices in a highly-fluctuating market. Additionally, the lack of skills and inability to access credit keeps them from adding value to the product and hampers any efforts to move up the value chain.

“With allo, women are an integral part of each step in the supply chain. However, their incomes do not commensurate with the drudgery involved in crafting each product. This drudgery, that takes a physical toll on women workers, is a direct result of the absence of women-friendly technologies in the industry.”