Forest Spice Development: the Use of Value Chain Analysis to Identify Opportunities for the Sustainable Development of Ethiopian Cardomom (Orerima)

Value chain analysis (VCA) has been used by an ongoing project in south-west Ethiopia to
explore how a spice, korerima, can be developed to increase forest value and enhance
sustainable forest livelihoods. The Ethiopian government has identified the spice sector as
having economic growth potential within its strategy for commercializing agriculture but
the VCA identifies significant challenges that need to be addressed to achieve this. These
include practical problems of harvesting spice safely from the forest, quality issues relating
to processing and storage, and market-based issues of access and information. Practical
and organizational interventions are identified but the implications for poverty, environment
and gender are significant and more detailed, qualitative research is necessary before implementation.
The paper concludes that VCA is not a quick fix and requires significant investment
and expertise for effective use and therefore needs to be part of long-term, flexible, iterative
development initiatives.