World Bank providing assistance for Nepali Coffee

The World Bank (WB) is soon providing US$ 35,000 (about Rs 2.48 million) to improve commercial and technical capability of the coffee farmers to raise volume of production and enhance quality of organic coffee.

The assistance will be spent on farmers in Syangja, Kaski, Kavre, Lalitpur, Tanahun and Lamjung — the districts identified as having potential for producing quality coffee. 

The leading multilateral donor has already signed an agreement for assistance and officials at the Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives said the fund will be used under Project for Agricultural Commercialization and Trade (PACT).

“Under the program, we will form farmers´ groups, provide technical training on organic coffee plantation, and support formation for nursery, among others,” said Shyam Prasad Bhandari, chairman of Nepal Coffee Producers Association.

The association has set a target to plant 100,000 coffee plants this year. Fundamentally, the assistance will be spent to meet this target. The association has also targeted to improve quality of coffee pulp, distribute moisture meter to farmers and organize exposure visits for farmers to different districts. The fund will be used for these purposes as well.

According to the officials, the government will spend the assistance in two modes. Under the first mode, which is meant for individual planters, the farmers are supposed to invest 30 percent while the remaining 70 percent will come from the WB-pledged fund.

The second mode is meant for cooperatives. Under this, farmers will need to invest 50 percent to get the remaining 50 percent support from the government.

Bhandari further stated that the National Tea and Coffee Development Board (NTCDB) is planning to plant one million coffee saplings every year from 2012. “At present there is an annual demand of 4,000 tons of coffee. However, we produce only 417 tons,” said Bhandari.

Though Nepal has around 60,000 hectares of land suitable for coffee plantation, currently coffee is planted in only 1,650 hectares of land. NTCDB plans to increase the plantation area by 2,000 hectares annually.

There are more than 70 coffee cooperatives across the country and around 26,000 small farmers are involved in the plantation process.

The government had launched PACT in August 2009, aiming to improve competitiveness of small farmers and the agri-business sectors in select commodities including coffee, vegetables, cereals, rainbow trout, basic seeds, floriculture and ginger. Under it, the government is providing support players along the value chain in 25 districts.