Consciously Farming, Consciously Consuming

A partnership to support a green recovery in Nepal by improving smallholder farmers’ access to markets and promoting sustainable farming through the online  Kheti Food platform. The platform connects farmers to consumers and sells products to reduce environmental impacts of agriculture.

Context

Agriculture in Nepal accounts for over 60% of the workforce and makes up only 25% of the country’s GDP. A lack of modernisation and commercialisation has held the sector back. Most farmers are low-income smallholder farmers who lack both access to markets and the technology to boost production. The closure of Nepal’s borders, due to COVID-19 restrictions, has led to an increase in demand for locally sourced produce.

About the initiative

The initiative aims to improve smallholder farmers’ access to markets and promote sustainable farming through the online Kheti Food platform. By connecting farmers with consumers through a digital delivery provider, fresh and healthy produce will me more accessible. A farm management tool supports farmers in maintaining soil quality, provides expert advice, and offer high-quality inputs for sale.

Through the BPP partnership, the partners will scale the platform to increase the number of farmers from 1,300 to 5,000 and agricultural co-ops from 42 to 100 with around 20,000 farmers across the co-ops.  The platform provides farmers with a new sales channel, connecting them with consumers and a means to increase their income, while also increasing women’s participation with over 3,000 farmers being women. For consumers, the platform offers quality, locally produced food.

Climate benefits

The initiative addresses the three main environmental impacts associated with agricultural production in Nepal: poor soil quality, synthetic fertilizers and pesticides, and poor farming practices. The platform provides technical assistance such as soil testing to increase soil fertility and production and offers alternatives to pesticides and synthetic fertilizers.

Key contributions from partners

• DV Excellus will bring more than 10 years-experience in the agri-food-tech industry and their KHETI food platform to improve the links between farms, business buyers, and customers to support farmers, businesses, and customers.
• Upaya City Cargo will bring their expertise in the logistics industry to offer portable cold-chain storage to improve agricultural food logistics.
• Australian Government provides catalytic funding and can provide gender expertise to strengthen social and commercial impacts, connection to an extensive network, capability building on how to capture report social impact, safeguard standards and practices, national and global recognition

Key contributions from partners

We aim to improve the market access of smallholder farmers through this partnership. This association will help us to connect more farmers and consumers from diverse geographical areas of Nepal and create an advanced supply chain system for the smallholder farmers for easy purchase and sales of agriculture inputs and locally grown quality outputs.  

This partnership was selected through the BPP’s 2020 Call for Partnerships to support COVID-19 recovery across the Asia-Pacific.