Nepal deputy prime minister Bishnu Prasad Poudel kickstarted a new program supported by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and the government of Nepal that will help over a quarter million people living on small-scale farms transition towards commercial and agroecological farming.
The US$120 million program, Resilient High-Value Agricultural Programme (R-HVAP), will introduce new methods to increase food production for small-scale farming families. It got off to a strong start at an inception workshop in Kathmandu where Jay Bahadur Tandan, member of the National Planning Commission and Krishna Timisina, executive director of the Nepal Agriculture Research Council, spoke along with deputy prime minister Poudel. Attendees included senior government officials, private sector representatives, development partners, civil society organizations, and media.
“The program’s focus on establishing a regional agriculture wholesale market based in the city of Butwal, which will play a pivotal role in the conservation, production, processing, and marketing of authentic Nepali agricultural products, is commendable,” Poudel said.
The agreement for the eight-year R-HVAP project that will reach 60,000 small-scale farming families across Lumbini, Karnali, and Sudurpashchim provinces was signed last December.
Ram Nath Adhikari, Nepal’s minister of agriculture and livestock development, acknowledged IFAD’s critical role in empowering small-scale farmers and expressed confidence that R-HVAP will help meet the rising demand for agroecological products in both domestic and international agricultural markets.
IFAD country director for Nepal, Roshan Cooke, reflected on 45 years of partnership between IFAD and the government of Nepal, making it one of IFAD’s first investments. He thanked the Government of Nepal for its recent contribution to IFAD’s 13th Replenishment.
“R-HVAP seeks to systematically transition the smallholder agriculture sector towards commercially- oriented agroecological farming that is inclusive, resilient, and profitable,” Cooke said.
IFAD’s financial support to Nepal began in 1978, supporting the development policies and programs of the government and therefore investing in smallholder agriculture, poverty alleviation, and redressing inequality and social marginalization. IFAD focused its work particularly in the hills and mountains, where poverty levels are high and access to infrastructure, services and markets is extremely limited.
To date, IFAD has supported 20 rural development projects in Nepal worth US$904 million, of which it has contributed US$393 million, reaching nearly 1.1 million families, thus reducing rural poverty.
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An English-language food and beverage processing and packaging industry B2B platform in print and web, IndiFoodBev is in its third year of publication. It is said that the Indian food and beverage industries represent approximately US$ 900 billion in revenues which implies more than 20% of the country’s GDP. Eliminating the wastage on the farmside can help to deliver more protein to a higher number of the population apart from generating sizable exports. The savings in soil, seeds, water, fertilizer, energy and ultimately food and nutrition could be the most immense contribution that country is poised to make to the moderation of climate change.
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Naresh Khanna – 10 February 2025
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