Towards sustainable service provision and effective lobby and advocacy

Nepal Agriculture Cooperative Central Federation Ltd. (NACCFL) is the umbrella organization of Small Farmer Cooperative Limited (SFCL) and similar other agriculture cooperatives. SFCLs are agricultural microfinance cooperatives which are fully owned and managed by the local community. They have their origin in the Small Farmers Development Program (SFDP)which had been implemented by the Agricultural Development Bank Ltd. (ADBL) in 1975. As of Aug 2015, local communities in 650 VDCs have formed their own SFCLs spread in 68 districts throughout the country. Among these SFCLs, 11 SFCLs have been performing limited banking operations with the permission of Nepal Rastra Bank (NRB). The formation of the NACCFL was based on the felt need of all local federations to have a national representation and followed a bottom-up approach. Majority of farmers do not have access to information on available (government) support programmes to improve the Agricultural sector, or do not know how to present their needs in a proper way. And vice versa, the government is not closely enough informed about the real farmers needs while preparing the major documents such as agriculture perspective plan, government fifth year plan, policy and procedures, and strategic plan. Because of that, policies are not favorable to the small holders farmers. There is need of farmers consultation while preparing such documents to make them farmers friendly. Thus the present proposal act as bridge between farmers needs and policy.