Vegetable farming program for landless farmers

Vegetable farming has been a savior for Anita, who went from being a struggling, landless farmer to earning 3 times the average salary for the area. She lives in Sunsari, Nepal; a remote village with limited opportunities for income to the poor farmers.

Anita gets goose bumps when she recalls her condition three years ago. Her family did not have their own home, and were living in a public place, working as agriculture labors. This gave them limited income and they struggled to to feed the family on the low wages they received for their hard work. Anita’s three children, oldest twelve and youngest nine year were forced to work in a brick factory.  

They now have a vegetable garden and a tin-roofed house on their own land. 

“ I earned Nepalese Rs 6000 from selling green chilies and Rs 10,000 by other vegetables in this month. My profit during this year has been around Rs 50,000”, says Anita very proudly. Anita now earns nearly three times more than average a person in Nepal. 

The vegetable farming program

Anita, no more a landless farmer, is one of the farmers out of over 380 landless families involved in vegetable farming program in Sunsari. Plan started its program in Sunsari in 1994. In the initial stage, Plan worked with the comunities to set up basic services such as education, health and physical facilities.

These programs, however, had not been able to address the basic problems of the landless farmers directly. Plan staff built relationships with these communities to identify most suitable activities to help meet their basic needs. The farmers decided to initiate the vegetable cultivation program.

The farmers of a particular cluster form a group to work togther. Plan helps them to lease land and prepare business plan. Plan assists them to buy vegetable seeds and install treadle pumps for irrigation.

The farmers participate in a rigorous training program to learn organisational, management and technical skills of vegetable farming. They are initially helped to establish market outlets to sell the vegetables. The subsidy from Plan, however, is reduced every year aiming at making them self-reliant in four years.

Bimala Devi, a member of the group led by Anita says with her full confidence, “ We can now continue the vegetable cultivation program without Plan support." She recommends, “ Plan should replicate the program in new villages to address similar problems that we were facing three years ago.”