The project is implemented in six VDCs of the earthquake-affected district of Lalitpur. The prime focus of the project is livelihood promotion through the value chain development of lime and mandarin in all these targeted VDCs, directly supporting 600 farmers. The project indirectly supports 5269 people from 249 households.
After the earthquake, the lack of livelihood opportunities has triggered the vulnerabilities of people affecting their livelihood and deteriorating the overall socio-economic condition of the families. The project has the main goal of promoting resilient livelihood for the most vulnerable farmers of the Lalitpur district of Nepal through the value chain development of lime and mandarin.
The 600 direct farmers (women and men) are being capacitated through different technical pieces of training in all the phases of the first segment of the value-chain: preparation of land, slope stabilization, micro-irrigation, orchards development, and inter-cropping. The capacity building part is being sustained by the provision of inputs and set-up of demonstration plots, in order to show practically how to manage the new techniques.
Besides these activities, the project also supports the farmers in creating a cooperative that is in charge of all the phases of the value chain. The project staff constantly works with the cooperative and the relevant stakeholder to develop market linkages to sell the final product (lime and mandarin) but also the sapling that is being produced in the screen house nursery which is set-up by the project. Moreover the cooperative is being supported in the post-harvesting handling, thanks to the setting-up of 3 collection centers and 3 cellar storage facilities, in the business development and in having access to financial institutions.