Strengthening Smallholders Farmers Organization for Livestock Value Chain (SLVC-II) Project

Summary of the project: After the successful completion of Strengthening Smallholder Enterprises of Livestock Value Chain for Poverty Reduction and Economic Growth in Nepal (SLVC-I), Heifer International Nepal has designed a second phase of the project (SLVC-II).  This four-year project aims to support the project families to reach annual living income benchmark (NPR 390 K/family) by 2021. The project will work with Smallholder Farmers’ Organizations and Value Chain actors to improve market systems primarily in Goat Meat and Dairy value chains along with Back Yard Poultry (BYP) and Horticulture value chains. 

The sub-award activities mainly focus on strengthening the capacity of cooperatives (Institutional, Governance, Financial Management, and Business Development Services). The project will cover 15 women cooperatives and support them to become financially-viable and sustainable entities. These will be empowered Lead Firms, having forward and backward linkages with Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) owned by its members. The cooperatives will have a commercial relationship with its member MSMEs, buying and selling various products, services, and solutions.  

The products, services and solutions offered by the cooperatives will directly contribute to the growth and profitability of the MSMEs contributing to the project goal, bringing beneficiary families to annual living income and achieving resiliency. At the same time, the cooperatives effort will be targeted towards a quality product (goat, dairy, vegetables, backyard poultry-BYP) as demanded by the market at a required volume and specifications. This will help to establish the farmers’ organization as a strong value chain actor leading the way in fair share distribution and efficiency in the targeted value chain.

Overall objectives of project:  Increase the average annual income of project families by NPR 5, 57,000. This will enable project families over the living income benchmark to achieve resiliency

Specific Objectives: 

1. Social capital strengthened in cooperatives and among its members.
2. Cooperative Governance and Financial Management improved. 
3. Cooperative business and marketing skills improved.
4. Cooperative provision of BDS services improved. 
5. Cooperative profitability and financial sustainability increased.

Major Interventions 

1. Review workshop of cooperatives capacity assessment 
2. Cooperative business plan review workshop
3. B2B meeting with buyer at coops. level 
4. Review workshop between and insurance agents (coops) and companies  
5. Orientation on loan processing at coops level   
6. Live goat marketing campaign 
7. Review and planning of collective marketing at co-op level 
8. PMCC meeting

Project approach and implementing modality  

1. Primary focus: meat goat and dairy value chains 
2. Subsidiary areas of intervention: back yard poultry and vegetables 
3. Scale up the enterprise of the participating farmers, 
4. Increased access to other business development services 
5. Increase in profitability: farm and co-ops

Implementation Modality