Cooperative starts marketing produce of farmers of Kalinchowk

By Our Correspondent,Charikot, Apr. 30: A cooperative has started marketing the products produced by the farmers of Kalinchowk Rural Municipality in Dolakha.

Nilkamal Cooperative located in Kalinchowk Rural Municipality-8, Sunkhani has started the market management of non-perishable agricultural products to encourage local farmers to engage in commercial farming.

To collect various types of non-perishable agricultural products produced by the farmers, Lutheran World Federation has supported Rs. 200,000 to build a collection centre through Human Rights Awareness and Development Centre (HRAD), Dolakha, said Tahal Acharya, founder chairman and manager of the cooperative.

According to Acharya, the co-operative has been collecting agricultural products produced by local farmers at a reasonable price and supplying them to Kathmandu and other markets.

The cooperative, which was established in the year 2070 B.S., has started collecting non-perishable agricultural products such as coffee, gundruk, beans, soybeans, turmeric, ginger and beans and selling them in Kathmandu and other places.

Laxmi Bhatta, an employee of the cooperative, said that most of the coffee comes to the collection centre operated by the cooperative.

She said that as many as 20 local farmers bring coffee to the cooperative’s collection centre for sale.

She said that one farmer brings coffee ranging from five kgs to 300 kgs a season.

The cooperative is supplying agricultural products for sale in Kathmandu and other markets by adding a certain percentage of profit to the agricultural products purchased from the farmers.

Chitra Prasad Pathak, a farmer of Kalinchowk Rural Municipality-8, Sunkhani, said that he is now bringing almost 300 kg of coffee to the cooperative’s collection centre for sale.

Pathak, who has been cultivating coffee for the past eight years, said that in the past, he used to take coffee to Kathmandu and sell it himself, but it has become easier to sell coffee from his house after the cooperative started to buy the produce by establishing a collection centre.

He said that after purchasing the coffee by the cooperative, he expanded the cultivation area and planted more than 500 plants of Arabica coffee on about eight ropanies of land.

He said that the coffee produced by him is being sold for Rs. 500 to Rs. 550 per kg.

The cooperative has also provided coffee cultivation training to 40 farmers in financial support of The Leprosy Mission Nepal and coordination of The Fresh Himalaya Company.

Manager of cooperative Acharya said that The Leprosy Mission Nepal and The Fresh Himalaya Company are going to support the trained farmers with about 8,000 coffee seedlings at a rate of 200 plants per farmer.