Category: News

With the joint collaboration of National Farmers’ Group Federation and National Land Right Forum, Alliance of Agriculture for Food (AAF) had prepared and published agricultural election manifesto. The document was made public through a press meet held at Nepal Krishi Patrakar Pratisthan, Sambad Dabali, Anamnagar on 18th April 2017. The representatives from all the three collaborators kept their views regarding the appeal to voters and candidates so as to raise awareness to incorporate the issues of small holders, women and landless farmers as candidates’ agenda. The concerned stakeholders of the alliance and media were present in the press meet.

पार्टीका घोषणापत्र पढौं । उम्मेदवारको विचार र योजना सोधौं ।

भूमिहीन, मोही र साना किसानको भोट कसलाई ? Download Leaflet

स्थानीय सरकारले कृषिमा ध्यान दिनुपर्ने किन ? Download Leaflet

The forests resource assessment report 2014 reports 5 % increment of forest cover in 20 years’ time from 1990. Despite of this increment, there has not been much improvement in the quality and productivity of the forestland mainly due to the subsistence forest management practices. As a result, the full potential of forests to produce its goods and services could not be harnessed. In the past, several silvicultural practices were demonstrated on various forest types. However, these practices could not be scaled up due to differences on understanding on the importance of silvicultural interventions.

To address these issues, the Department of Forests in collaboration with other departments under the Ministry of Forests and Soil Conservation and non-governmental organizations is organizing a three-day “National Workshop on Silviculture” on the particular theme of “Silviculture for Sustainable Forest Management”. This workshop will provide a common platform for the government, non-government, and academic sectors to identify methods on and lessons from various silvicultural piloting and intervention experiences, to recommend for their effective implementation.

Please follow the link below for more detail and e-copy of brochure.

Forest Workshop on Silviculture_Nepali

Forest Workshop on Silviculture_English

The workshop was organized on December 23, 2016 at Hotel Himalaya, Lalitpur. It was organized by the REDD Implementation Centre of the Ministry of Forest and Soil Conservation, Government of Nepal and was supported by the UN-REDD Program (FAO, UNDP and UNEP). A team from ForestAction Nepal comprising of Naya Sharma Paudel, Shambhu Dangal, Rahul Karki and Anukram Adhikary was participating in the workshop to make a presentation on the UN-REDD Study entitled “Analysis of Policies and Measures in addressing drivers of deforestation and forest degradation and barriers to improved forest management”. The purpose of the presentation was to share the study’s findings and also acquire validation, feedback and comments from the participants on the study as a whole. Furthermore, the team from ForestAction Nepal will use the comments thus received to strengthen their report and eventually share it with the REDD Implementation Center, UN-REDD (Bangkok), and UNDP (Nepal) by end of December, 2016.

This research sharing workshop was held on 16 December, 2016 in Kathmandu. The participants represented various organizations such as CIFOR, ForestAction, MOFsc, Tribhuvan University, COFSON, SDC, IAAS, HANDPASS, DOF, DFRS, IUCN, NEFIN, ACOFUN, Kavre Ban Pariwar Sangh, Fenfit, forest entrepreneurs and academicians. This workshop was held with the objective of sharing the research findings pertaining to forest tenure reform, highlighting its economic domain.

The two presentations of the day were: i) Devolution of forest rights and sustainable forest management presented by Dr. Steven Lawry, CIFOR and ii) Forest tenure reform and investment outcomes: evidence from community forest enterprise in Nepal presented by Dr. Bishnu Prasad Sharma, Tribhuvan University

The presentation was followed by discussion amongst the panelist and the participants, in which they provided valuable insights on the research.

A collaborative team comprising Professor Inger Maaren ( University of Bergen), Bikash Adhikari, Govinda Paudel, Dinesh Paudel (ForestAction Nepal Researchers), Jessica Dicarlo, Katie Epstein ( University of California, Berkeley graduates) recently completed an intensive 5-week fieldwork session from May 28, 2016 in Dolakha district. The goals of the project were to broadly examine the impacts and implication of the 2015 earthquake on households, communities and agro-ecological systems. This project was conveived , written and funded from a Peder Sather Grant Program Collboration ( Norwegian government funds) between the University of Bergen, Norway and the University of California, Berkeley.

The field team employed a broad set of investigatory and participatory methods including household surveys, key informant and informal interviews, focus groups and discussions, participant observation, crop calendars and participatory budgeting. Extensive time was spent in the district’s commercial capital, Charikot, where the field team interviewed numerous stakeholders including members from the District Administrator Office, District Development Committee, District Disaster Relief Committee, District Forest Office, District Agriculture Development Office, District Soil Conservation Office, District Livestock Office, District Police Office, VDC, major political parties, journalists, leading farmers, NGOs and INGOs. Data was collected on agricultural production and aid development project spending and allocation. Household surveys were completed in two contrasting villages, Sundrawati and Boch, with subsistence-based livelihood and increased market-orientation and access respectively.

Findings from the data are numerous and far-reaching. The earthquakes had a profound effect on individual households, communities and district-wide infrastructure. Physical damage to property and landscape is visible and persistent and many of the individuals interviewed and surveyed remain without adequate housing, despite significant efforts by the government and aid organizations to deliver much needed materials and cash. Agricultural systems were most impacted by damaged water sources for irrigation and drinking as well as widespread livestock death, which hinders manure production, an essential input for subsistence-based crops like maize, millet, wheat and paddy. To meet the needs of increasing income and reduced labor availability, many farmers are turning to low labor, high value and market-oriented crops like kiwi, cardamom and vegetables. These findings and more will be discussed more extensively at an upcoming FA workshop on July 26th and in a Social Science Baha paper presentation. A collaborative team from University of Bergen, UC Berkeley and ForestAction Nepal, developed and refined the survey instruments and will be collaborating in the future on data analysis, writing, and dissemination.

A day long interactive workshop on agriculture budget 2073/74 was held on 3rd July at Staff College, Jawalakhel organized by National Peasant’s Coalition Nepal and supported by Alliance of Agriculture for Food. The chief guests of the program were honorable finance minister, agriculture minister and livestock minister, Mr. Bishnu Poudel, Mr. Haribol Gajurel and Mrs. Shanta Manavi respectively. More than 250 participants participated the program including different farmers networks, NGOs/INGOs, political leaders and media. Presentations on budget 2073/74 were presented on behalf of ministry of agriculture development and ministry of livestock service on which comments were made by other major participants.

This workshop was held in Kathmandu, with the objective of sharing research on global tenure reform and challenges including experiences from south East Asia. ForestAction and CIFOR have been working in partnership to identify the knowledge gap in supporting further reform in Nepal. The inception workshop was organized as part of the partnership to access the historical tenure reform process in Nepal, current status, major drivers and actors, key areas of contestation and knowledge gap for supporting further reform. Four presentations were presented by team from CIFOR and ForestAction, followed by panel discussion.

On 8 May, 2016 the Translated nepali version of Bharat Manasta‘s book “ORGANIC REVOLUTION: the agricultural transformation of Cuba since 1990” was launched in Nepal, the book highlights the organic agricultural revolution of Cuba. And, our objective is to bring forth the learning from the book and implement it into the Nepalese agriculture scenario. Mr. Mansata is an author- editor- activist, the co-founder of ,Earthcare Books in Kolkata and actively involved in environmental and sustainability issues for decades. He is also the author of  The Great Agricultural Challenge.

A district-level workshop on Under-Utilised Land(UUL) was held in Lamjung and Kavre on 19th and 27th April, 2016,respectively. The objective of the workshop was to share the research findings of UUL case studies and receive feedbacks from local stakeholders. Local Development Officer, delegates from DADO, DFO DLSO, CDO, FECOFUN, local political parties, media houses and farmer groups were present in the workshop. The workshop was completed in two sessions. Session 1: briefing workshop objective and presenting research finding and session 2: Group discussion. In the first session, Krishna P. Paudel briefly highlighted the national agricultural context and explained the objective of the workshop. Then after, Yuba Raj Subedi presented the key research finding of the case studies. On the second session, Naya S. Poudel facilitated the open group discussion and responded the participant’s inquires. Overall program was facilitated by Madan Bashyal. The participant actively took part in group discussion; the workshop was very dynamic and productive. Furthermore, ForestAction facilitated a national level workshop on UUL held in Kathmandu on 28th – 29th April.

Day 1  National workshop on Interaction on Ecological farming (Ecological Agriculture)

A national level workshop for the interaction on Ecological farming based agriculture was held at ForestAction Nepal, Bagdole, on 17th March, 2016. The main objective of the program was to discuss about Ecological farming as the major practice of sustainable agriculture. The participants of the program were the farmers from different districts engaged in this type of agriculture, the representatives from National Permaculture Group (NPG) and media personnels. This program was facilitated by Dr. Krishna Poudel and Kamal Bhandari of FA and was attended by 25 participants.

Day 2  National workshop on Interaction on contemporary issues of agriculture

With the major objective of interaction on the contemporary issues of agriculture, another national level workshop was held in Babarmahal, on 18th March, 2016. The major research findings of feminization of agriculture and VDC 15% budget of agriculture were presented by FA agriculture team. Furthermore, video documentary of successful women cases were also presented and, the Book of Review and Analysis of ADS was launched. The facilitation of the program was done by FA Chairperson Khem Raj Dahal. The major national stakeholders of agriculture such as representatives from Ministry of Agriculture, Department of Agriculture, Ministry of local development, Farmer representatives, Partner organizations, various NGOs/INGOs, Alliance of Agriculture for Food, Media personnels participated in the program and was attended by 64 participants.

The exchange visit to different research sites of Nepal was organized from 22-29 February, 2016 for the team from Bangladesh. The visit was the part of Community based Adaptive Learning in Management of Conflicts and Natural Resources in Bangladesh and Nepal (CALCNR) research project activity which is a collaboration in research between ForestAction Nepal, iDE in Nepal and FHRC and Nice Foundation in Bangladesh. Altogether 13 participants representing different community based organizations and its network, participated from Bangladesh. The visit was one of the project learning and sharing activity and the aim of the visit was to enhance knowledge and leadership of CBO leaders on the co-management of natural resources and to understanding the nature of conflicts around those natural resources, initiatives taken for minimizing it and its outcomes on sustainable use and conservation of resources. The team visited different Participatory Action Research (PAR) sites in Nawalparasi, Kaski and Kavre and discussions were carried out with the community people on the issues around landlessness and forest management, issues of distant users in community forestry, multiple use water system and LAPA. Furthermore, the progress and role of participator action and planning in minimizing those conflicts were also discussed.