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On December 17th, 2023, ForestAction Nepal, the secretariat of the Alliance of Agriculture for Food (AAF), organized a discussion event titled “Agroecological Perspectives in the 16^th Periodic Planning” at SAP-Falcha Kathmandu. The main objective of this event was to deliberate on the necessity of incorporating agroecology into the 16th periodic plan, considering the recent publication of its concept note by the National Planning Commission.

The program was conducted in the presence of distinguished guests, including Honorable Binita Kathayat, a member of the Agriculture, Cooperative, and Natural Resources Committee (under the House of Representatives); Honorable Dr. Jaykant Raut, a member of the National Planning Commission; Dr. Hari Bahadur KC, Director General of the Department of Agriculture; Dr. Ram Krishna Shrestha, Joint Secretary of the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock Development; Mahesh Jaisi, Head of the Agriculture Extension Service Department, IAAS and various stakeholders comprising agriculture experts, farmers, media personnel, students, representatives of civil society organizations (CSOs), and members of AAF.

The event followed a specific modality, beginning with a presentation by the AAF. Mr. Uddhav Adhikari, the coordinator of AAF, presented key facts and figures regarding Nepalese agriculture. This included an assessment of the shortcomings of the previous periodic plan and emphasized the importance of incorporating agroecology into the 16th periodic plan.

Following the presentation, the floor was opened for discussion. A summary of the main viewpoints expressed by the guests and participants is highlighted below;

– agriculture should be regarded as a means of livelihood.

– necessity of allocating agricultural budgets towards the development of environment friendly tools and technologies.

– need of improving implementation strategies of plans.

– due to COVID-19 and other adverse circumstances, many of the goals outlined in the previous plans were not accomplished.

– given the current scenario, an immediate transformation towards agroecological farming may not be possible. Instead, a gradual reduction of chemical use and an increase in organic matter as part of a strategy to transition towards organic farming is required.

– agroecology should be viewed as a scientific approach rather than just a form of subsistence farming.

– current plans and policies have failed to attract the interest of youth in agriculture.

– there is need to establish a co-existence between agricultural extension, research, and development.

– necessity of structural reformation for sustainable transformation of the food system.

– need to develop critical thinking in government programs and processes.

– the need for parliamentarians to have a more active and influential role in shaping agricultural policies and plans.

This year, the 43^rd World Food Day was celebrated worldwide with the slogan “Water is life, Water is food”. ForestAction Nepal, the secretariat of the Alliance of Agriculture for Food, in collaboration with Agriculture and Forestry University (AFU), the Department of Agriculture, Jilla Prangrarik Sangh, Chitwan, Better Chitwan, Chitwan Kacheheri, and student organizations from AFU and Rampur Agriculture Campus, organized a series of events on October 6, 7, and 8, 2023, to mark this event in Chitwan, Nepal.

The celebration kicked off with a press release to highlight the significance of the event and inform the stakeholders about it. On the following day, a rally was organized, where the participants marched from Pulchwok, Narayanghat, to Chaubiskoti. The rally was attended by farmers, agricultural students, agricultural activists, journalists, and healthcare personnel. The aim of this public event was to raise awareness among the public regarding the problems and challenges faced by farmers, the importance of sustainable farming practices, and the need for a resilient food system. On the same day, a drama entitled Sattapatta was showcased in the auditorium hall of the university in the presence of more than 200 audiences. Sattapatta is the story about the farming, and it gives the audience a message about the impact of the modern farming system that promotes the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides on our indigenous and traditional knowledge, technologies, soil, seed, and including human health.

On the third day, a seminar titled “Debate on the Issues of Food and Agriculture” was organized, consisting of four sessions, including the opening and thematic sessions. Policymakers, stakeholders, thematic experts, students, journalists, and farmers were all present at the seminar. Following the seminar, “raithane khadhya sanjh” (a food festival) was organized to celebrate the diversity and richness of our local cuisine, featuring a variety of delicious dishes from the Tharu community.

ForestAction Nepal, the secretariat of Alliance of Agriculture for Food (AAF) collaborated with the Shilpee Theatre Group (STG) and produced a theatre play namely “Sattapatta” with an aim of creating public awareness on the importance of natural farming and its potential benefits for soil and human health.

The main focus areas of the theatre were;

– The impact of industrial food (chemical-based junk), on soil and human health and planetary life and lives of farming communities

– Soil degradation due to malpractices in farming.

– Toxicity in food and alarming non-communicative disease such as cancer and diabetics

– Initiate a discussion about agroecology adaptation and its challenges in the current context of commercial food industry and industrial farming backed by GMO technology

The Forum (Kachahari) Theatre SattaPatta was performed in different 10 villages/cities from 1st of October to 13th of October 2023 respectively. The journey of SattaPatta began with a first premium show performance on 1st of October in the open space of Shilpee Theatre premises. In other districts the play was hosted by the local organisation associated with AAF and STG in different places.

After every performance, the team interacted with the participating audiences and collected their views. The play was highly appreciated by participants all over the places. The audience realized the harm of chemical fertilizer and pesticide to human health and environment. They agreed the way forward for healthy life and sustainable life is only organic food and farming.

Women entrepreneurs of Barhabise municipality ward no 8 recently constructed a permanent nursery with support from the project “Economic Empowerment of Women through Forest Solutions”, an IDRC funded action research project. The project handed over the nursery to the women entrepreneur group in presence of municipality representatives including deputy mayor, municipal member and chief of sub-division forest officer. The handover program was organized to empower the local government authorities along with the women entrepreneurs in collaborative roles for sustaining the lessons learned from the project for economically, socially and politically advancing rural women’s holistic development via increasing accountability of the concerned government authorities.

These women took the lead in constructing the nursery infrastructure, which includes a nursery tunnel (9 m x 11 m) with a capacity for 10 beds, a shed house, a storage house, and iron wire fencing. All the construction funds were mobilized by the entrepreneurial group through their group account. Furthermore, they took leadership in dealing with contractors and monitoring the construction process.

The newly constructed permanent nursery structure has the capacity to raise more than 50,000 seedlings annually. At present, they possess over 5,000 seedlings ranging in age from 1 to 10 months. These include Coffee (2,500), Lemon (2,000), Orange (80-100), Dhupi (400-500), Ipil Ipil (200), and Cardamom (500-700). Entrepreneur women have organized their schedules in a rotational manner throughout the year to operate the seedling production business. Now, they are in the process of initiating the legal registration to ensure the sustainability of the business.

The seedlings are locally consumed. Recently the ward office-8, Barhabise municipality purchased fodder seedlings equivalent to NPR 29,000 which were distributed to farmer households to promote the agroforestry system.  The project along with entrepreneur women has been facilitating the market opportunities at the regional and national level.

During the nursery handover ceremony, the deputy mayor ensured the allocation of the government regular programme and budget in the upcoming process to scale up the women-led agriculture-forest-based nursery. The women expressed their gratitude to the project as well as the local government, saying, “We have experienced many projects that come and go. We thought the same about this project. But we were wrong”. This project has truly brought about constructive change within us. Additionally, another entrepreneurial woman added, “Now we do not have to rely entirely on our husband’s income, which has subtly changed society’s perception of us”. The women are proud of being able to construct and develop the nursery project in a successful, permanent way. They not only owned the nursery in their names but also won the status of skilled nursery experts.

After completing the 2 years of its action research journey, the project Economic Empowerment of Women through Forest Solutions has successfully carved out more than 240 rural marginalised women entrepreneurs and increased their economic, social, and technological empowerment through a series of trainings, visits, and capacity-building programs. During its implementation, they have come across policy, technological, and many other arduous legal barriers. So in order to represent the voices and stories of transformation of these entrepreneurs from the field to the table of policymakers, a one-day reflective national workshop was organized in Kathmandu. It aimed to enhance business and entrepreneurial knowledge through interaction and sharing their experiences, establish linkages between women-led production processes and the market through direct interactions with veteran entrepreneurs, and create a supportive and inclusive environment for the entrepreneurs in terms of policy and programme implementation, aiming for sustainable markets, and addressing the voice from the grassroots. As the diverse stakeholders are a crucial aspect of this national workshop, there was active engagement from diverse professional backgrounds who sparkled the discussion on different themes, intricately analysed the stories and voices of the entrepreneurs, and gave critical feedback and assurance to facilitate a supportive environment in as many aspects as possible.

The panelist discussion was centered on strategies and policies for the sustainability of microenterprises focusing on women’s engagement in the enterprise, Measures for easing registration and functioning, Major problems and issues encountered, strategies for solving the complications in the value chain of minor forest products, policy and practical gaps faced by women, and potential solutions to promote women in forest-based enterprises The issues faced by women entrepreneurs till now were: limited market, lack of skills of professional intermediaries at the local level, market expansion plans, formal product registration and certification, gender and caste discrimination, sustainability and availability of resources, maintaining quality, legitimacy of product prices, etc.

The common pathways echoed by the stakeholders were

● Accounting and expanding the use of local resources according to market potential.

● Developing strategies and implementing forest resource expansion programs,

● Market management and product diversification, for example, taking initiatives to bring Nepali paper and paper products to the national and international market,

● Producing and cultivating in community forests, private forests, and private lands for the sustainability of raw materials,

● Promoting agroforestry,

● Creating an environment of collaboration and cooperation with local government, domestic and divisional forest offices, banks and financial institutions, enterprise groups, value chain actors, community forests, and other stakeholders, and propagating the latest endeavors of knowledge and skills through various means