📋 Tender Overview
Source of Funding / Amount: Grant 0845-nep: nuts and fruits in hilly areas project
Ordinary capital resources: US$ 10.00 million
The project will increase agricultural income of approximately 40,000 farm households in 100 municipalities in hilly areas of five provinces: province 1, bagmati, gandaki, karnali and sudurpashchim. This will be mainly achieved through the development of approximately 10,000 hectares (ha) of climate resilient fruit and nut orchards providing value-addition to the nuts and fruits produced by at least 30,000 farm households. The project will also improve the institutional capacity for managing the nursery and horticulture sector. For about 10,000 smallholder households, who are not capable of investing in fruit and nut orchard development in the project provinces, the project will assist them to improve their vegetable and other nutritious crop production and its marketing.
Nepal is experiencing a rapid change in its farming systems, particularly in hilly areas that are between 500 and 3,000 meters (m) above sea level. In these areas, agriculture still provides livelihoods to 66% of the population, but the share of agriculture in rural income was merely 11. 4% in 2014-2015, and remittance has become the most important source of household income. As outmigration from these areas continuously rises, about 30% of cultivated land has now been abandoned from farming. Also, climate change is shifting crop cultivation altitude, and increasing diseases, insect pests and wet days. Climate vulnerability index is highest in the west, northwest and northeast with mountain regions in the northwest having the lowest adaptation capacity. These land abandonment, outmigration and climate vulnerability result in less livelihood options, further accelerating youth outmigration to urban areas and abroad. The effective exploration of nepals horticulture potential has been constrained by a wide range of factors including: (i) lack of business and marketing channel; (ii) high post-harvest losses up to 40% of production due to poor quality planting materials, poor post-harvest management techniques and inadequate equipment and infrastructure for grading, packaging, and climate-controlled storage; (iii) limited access to loans, particularly the medium term loans required for horticulture production, due to complex loan acquisition and collateral valuation processes; (iv) shortage and high cost of seasonal labor; and (v) steadily declining farm productivity by 20% over the last 15 years. The declining fruit and nut crop productivity has led to nepals orchard productivity falling below the world average in 2017. This is a result of: (i) poor quality planting materials in the absence of nursery regulations such as nursery act; (ii) old and senile orchards with limited use of machinery; (iii) small landholding farms, characterized by land fragmentation, with an average size of 0. 6 ha; (iv) limited water storage in hilly areas preventing year-
