Resources

Access to finance has always been a limiting factor in the sales of small agriculture machinery. Farmers don’t have easy access to finance and hence are not able to purchase machines that reduce cost and increase productivity. Providing access to finance at a reasonable interest rate could potentially lead to increase in the use and sales of agriculture machinery. To connect local financial cooperatives with agriculture machinery suppliers, two workshops were held on June 1st and June 2nd in Ilam and Jhapa respectively. Click the button below to read more:

Samarth-NMDP has partnered with the Trekking Agencies’ Association of Nepal (TAAN), the National Trust for Nature Conservation (NTNC), and the Kanchenjunga Conservation Area Management Council (KCAMC). Under these partnerships, activities such as trail maintenance, capacity building and awareness trainings, construction of trail bridges and porter shelters, and installation of information boards and directional signage will be carried out. Ownership of infrastructure facilities will rest with the relevant District Development Committees (DDCs) and Village Development Committees (VDCs).

The pig sector in Nepal is widespread and mainly characterized by small-scale, mixed farms. Pig farming is dominated by small household (HH) production units of 1-2 pigs, which accounted for 86% (464,200 HH) of all households raising pigs in 2011. Production is typically low-input low-output, using unimproved breeds. The most common sources of pig feed are food industry by-products, kitchen waste, and grain by-products. Pigs therefore serve to convert limited waste and by-products of low value into high value food for consumption or/and sale.

As part of Samarth-NMDP’s ongoing ‘Enhancing Quality Standard of Raw Milk’ intervention in the dairy sector, it is currently working with dairy stakeholders such as dairy associations, dairy cooperatives and its chilling centers, and the Department of Livestock Services (DLS) to improve the quality of raw milk. Four ToTs were organized to train 90 nominees from milk collection/chilling centres in May 2016 in the selected GMP pilot sites. Click the button below to read more:

Marketing strategies adopted by importers of mini-tillers have, so far, not been able to reach out to the farmers of the hills in reducing their skepticism, informing the benefits of mini-tillers and making mini-tillers and repair services accessible. Samarth-NMDP has therefore, partnered with one of the importers of mini-tillers, based on their willingness and capacity,  to pilot the business advisory services such as farmer-focused service provision, improved investment in after-sales and repairs, and collaboration with local government and extension officers for social marketing.

In the fish sector, lack of access to quality seeds - hatchling, fry and fingerlings - has been one of the major problems for farmers across the country. Every season, smallholder farmers struggle to acquire timely and necessary quantity of seeds. This reduces the harvest period by up to a month which results in fish that are smaller in size at the end of harvest fetching lower price.

In order to strengthen the after sales services of agri-machineries, Samarth-NMDP is currently working with Department of Agriculture Engineering (DOAEng) and private sector partners to build the capacity of motorcycle and pump-set mechanics to expand into repair and maintenance of agri-machineries. The first phase of the ten-day training was held from May 10^th to 19^th where 20 mechanics from 20 different districts from all across the nation were trained on the premises of DoAEng in Kathmandu. 

Put yourself in the position of an advertiser or communicator working in Nepal. You have a fixed budget and you need to reach as many of Nepal’s 31 million people as possible – of which over 80% live outside the main cities. How can you maximise your reach in the most cost effective way?

Lack of effective information is a critical constraint to all businesses, particularly to smallholder farmers and rural micro enterprises that operate in information-poor environments where many information channels are ineffective, inaccessible or unaffordable.