Category: News

The National Workshop on “Food and Agriculture Right: Civic Concern” was held on 17th -18th of March 2013 in Jawalakhel. The workshop was jointly organized by ForestAction and farmer’s association. Participants were from national planning commission, ministry of agriculture development, agriculture departments, CSOs, journalists and farmers from 7 districts ( Arghakhanchi, Kapilvastu, Nawalparasi, gorkha, Udayapur, Bara and Rasuwa). The main objective of the workshop was to raise the issues and challenges of small holder farmers and to suggest the government to address their concern while preparing agriculture development strategy

On February 27-28, farmers and civil society leaders came to Kathmandu from Karnali region to inform about the issues of food and agriculture of Karnali to the concerned stakeholders). In collaboration with Fastenoper, ForestAction have been involved in capacity building and facilitating farming communities of Karnali region.

A 5 days capacity building workshop was organized in July 2012 and facilitated to form a loose forum in each districts of Karnali region “Karnali Khadya tatha Krishi Sarokar Samuha”. Similarly 3 days preparatory workshop was organized in Surkhet from February 23-25, 2013. There were 25 representative farmers and civil society leaders from Bajura, Humla, Jumla, Kalikot, Dailekh and Mugu. Out of them 2-3 participants from each district were selected and came to Kathmandu as delegation team.

The delegation team came to Kathmandu and organized press meeting on 27 February with the aime to inform media about their programs/plans in Kathmandu and to release press statement. On the same day they discuss with the representatives from NGOs and INGOs separately. On 28 February they organized interaction with leaders of different political party to inform and request to be aware about the situation of food and agriculture of Karnali. Likewise they met vice-chairman of national planning commission, spokesperson of ministry of agriculture development and finally interact with the representatives of projects of governments. They also met president Ram Baran Yadav on 1 March.

The main aim of the concern group was to inform the problem and opportunities of food and agriculture in Karnali region. They urged all the stakeholders to realize the specific arid characteristic of the region and design plans, programs and policies address food and agriculture issues. They prioritized 5 major possibilities and priorities of Karnali and expecting appropriate policy and the program to be implemented. For more information see

Ban Chautari on “The Role of Indigenous and Community Conserved Areas (ICCAs) in Biodiversity Conservation in Nepal” was organized at Sap Falcha on 18 December, 2012 by the Ban Chautari Consortium

A letter was sent to Agriculture Minister and other related stakeholders, on behalf of Food and Sustainable Agriculture Initiative, Forestaction (on 1st September 2013), with the request to make wide review of ADS draft report and bring some changes in it accordingly. Further, as ADS draft report is written in English, it is requested to write it in Nepali language so that majority of Nepalese people/farmers can able to review the draft as well.

• District level consultation on issues of Agriculture in Dhunche, Rasuwa organized by ForestAction Nepal and Nepal Agroforestry Foundation on 31 December, 2012

  District level consultation on issues of Agriculture in Dhunche, Rasuwa ForestAction Nepal and Nepal Agroforestry Foundation (NAF) jointly organized district level stakeholder consultation workshop in Dhunche, Rasuwa on 31 December 2012. The main aim of the consultation was to discuss on the issues of agriculture policies in the broader context of Nepal and the issues and challenges of the agriculture sector in Rasuwa. This interaction was held between the farmers from villages and district level stakeholders. Approximately 35 participants were present in the workshop including representatives from District Agriculture Development Office, District Development Committee, District Livestock Service Office, farmers from 6 VDCs and some journalists. Mr. Kamal Acharya from NAF welcomed and introduced about the overall program, objectives and introduced each other. The team from ForestAction facilitated the interaction. Sujata Tamang from ForestAction presented on the overall issues of agriculture in Nepal and discussed about the need to promote sustainable agriculture explaining the current problems seen in agriculture sector. Similarly Dipankar Dahal presented on the major causes of declination of agriculture in Nepal. Moreover, Dr. Krishna Paudel discussed about the agriculture policy process, updates on current agriculture development strategy and the responsibilities of the government offices at district level. He encouraged farmers to raise their voice to the service providers and to be part of the policy process. Bhim Bahadur Tamang, farmer from Ramche argued on services provided by DADO of being unable to test the local soil and recommend the appropriate varieties of crops. Another farmer Chayangba Dorje was concerned on problems of wildlife attack to their crops and livestock. Krishna Humagain from DDC tried to defend himself on farmer’s comments by saying that they have limited resource but have tried to provide most of the services. He also complained on the farmers being totally dependent over the outsiders including government services. According to him villagers have also misused the funds though there are enough funds from different sources. Durga Dutta Panthi from DADO assured farmers that they are there to provide services to local farmers and they will try their best to serve them. Overall, the program was able to provide platform for the interaction between local farmers and the government staff. There was good discussion about the input and services from government as well as farmer’s dependency to the fund and outsiders even for possible and small scale works. It’s also noteworthy that district government staffs are also in limited resources and limited decision making power while farmers also are facing various problems in farming both natural and technological difficulties.

Learning Tour on Payment for Ecosystem Services to Gorkha and Chitwan organized for the Local Communities of Sundarijal VDC on 17-19 October, 2011

Call for PhD Research Proposal Climate Change and Rural Institutions

Two days training on Facilitating Skill Development on Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation was held on January 17-18 at Community Based Resource Center, Lamatar, and Lalitpur. The objective of the training was to make the community forest leaders capable to deal and facilitate about the climate change issues, forest based climate change adaptation and mitigation, REDD and PES in their respective forest user groups. The training was targeted for community forest leader’s form 11 CFUGs of Lamatar cluster of Lalitpur district. The training was financially supported by the Asia Pacific Network (APN) and co-organized by Sisnery FECOFUN Range Post.