Training of Nepalese farmers

Small Farmers Agricultural Cooperative Federation Makwanpur (SFACFL) is a farmers union of primary agricultural cooperatives in the district of Makwanpur, Nepal. Most of the members are mixed small holders, producing agricultural products on a small scale. The harvest is partly used for home consumption and an increasing part is being sold on the local market.

 

There is an increasing trend of farmers realising that producing for the market is interesting in order to gain more income for the household. Instead of producing very small quantities of all sorts of commodities, farmers start to focus on one or only several crops in order to provide sufficient supply that is attractive for the market. However, a key problem faced by the farmers is their lack of business mind-set and as a result of that farmers often do not know the production cost and profit made on their activities.

 

 

The farmers that are producing for the market lack the understanding as well as the skills to maintain farm data records. This sounds very basic but there is not a long tradition in writing and reading in Nepal, so farm administration is often fully absent. This prevents farmers to approach their farm really as a business, resulting in a poor bargaining position when selling their produce, resulting in poor prices, not making the right choices and not knowing how to make farming profit oriented. If you do not know the cost price, how can you really bargain with a trader?

 

Recordkeeping and bench-marking training to lead farmers, who after being trained roll out their knowledge to fellow farmers, has proven to be an effective and efficient way of capacity building. Agriterra supported the training of farmers on this topic at various farmer organisations in Nepal and other countries. The federation in Makwanpur would like to have more of their members to be trained on proper record keeping.

 

 

SFACFL was founded on 30 June 2010 and its mandate is providing non-financial services to its member cooperatives in order to improve the income from agriculture. They do this by providing technical and marketing related trainings and capacity building programs, lobby at district and national level for favorable policies and access to budgets. As per 2016, 41 primary cooperatives are the direct members of the federation; representing over 15.000 small farmers of which >60% are women.

 

 

Agriterra works with this organisation since 2014. Focus of the collaboration is to support the federation in providing sustainable services to their member cooperatives in the field of agricultural production and cooperative marketing. The federation is further supported in strong financial management, effective lobby and advocacy.

 

 

Do you have questions about this project? Send an e-mail to communicatie@agriterra.org.