Affiliated Parties: The Organic Valley Pvt Ltd and WWF – Hariyo Ban Program

With the objective of increasing the income of farmers along with capacity development through Turmeric Farming in Buffer Zone, The Organic Valley Pvt. Ltd along with WWF – Hariyo Ban II Program initiated the project,”Organic Turmeric Cultivation and Processing in Buffer Zone Area, Chitwan National Park – An Opportunity of Self Reliance.” Presently, turmeric farmers and traders in Nawalparasi are susceptible to extremely low margins due to presence of rampant fungi contamination, lack of domestic facilities for industrial extraction and distillation and traditional drying and processing techniques. Addressing to the issue, the project will enhance the capabilities of small holder’s farmers to set up processing unit, process the turmeric and export it to international market through reduced supply chain. This will also help both farmers and traders to get right price for their agriculture produce. Moreover, the intervention will instill technical skill of turmeric farming in the target farmers in producing high quality organic turmeric with high curcumin content. The export quality turmeric will be then meticulously branded and targeted for US organic market.

Beneficiaries: The project targets to capacitate 600 local farmers of Lamichaur, Nawalparasi out of which more than 80% of the farmers are women. The farmers of three different Buffer Zone Community Forest namely; “Kumarwarti Buffer Zone Community Forest”, “Krishnasar Buffer Zone Community Forest” and “Namuna Buffer Zone Community Forest” are targeted.

Activities

The project will carry out following activities;

1. Identification of the pocket areas through need and volume of production base.
2. Conduction of baseline survey of targeted beneficiaries.
3. Capacity building training on Organic Turmeric Farming
4. Seed Support to the farmers
5. Organic Certification on the land
6. Setting up of Processing Unit
7. Branding and Marketing of Turmeric produced in the project intervention area.
8. Monitoring and Evaluation

Project Area

Buffer Zone Area of Chitwan National Park – Nawalparasi.

Outcomes

• Income of farmers (listed beneficiaries) of Nawalparasi increased by 15% to 20%.
• Introduce and capacitate 600 farmers on Organic Internal Control System and facilitate on Organic way of Turmeric Farming.
• Procurement of all Turmeric (fresh) produced in the Buffer Zone area and process it in the processing unit established there.
• Employment opportunity created for locals of Nawalparasi in the processing unit.
• Farmers entitled to receive equitable benefits.