Pax Earth distributed 400 fruit saplings to 60 underprivileged farmers in Poudelthok, Kalimati and Kot Timal – three villages in Namobuddha Municipality in Kavrepalanchok district of Nepal on February 12, 2024. Pax Earth has been implementing Fruit Garden project to facilitate local farmers to create sustainable fruit gardens at the household level in these villages for the last 4 years. Main objective of the fruit garden project is to contribute to create sustainable fruit gardens and thereby to improve the incomes of the farmers once the trees start to yield fruits in sellable quantity in future. Improving health and nutrition, promoting greenery and minimise youth migration are a few other objectives of the project.
Under the same project, a Pax Earth team led by president Sujan Koirala along with board member Laxman Prasad Neupane, member Debraj Ghimire and senior horticulturist Ramhari Prasad Upadhyay traveled to these villages, demonstrated how to plant systematically, and distributed 400 fruit plants including 161 saplings of kiwi, 129 saplings of apple, 57 saplings of orange and 53 saplings of pears.
At first, we demonstrated the systematic way of planting a fruit sapling at two farms in Poudelthok. We planted one sapling each of orange at the farmland of farmers Chandra Bahadur Tamang and Achyout Prasad Poudel under the guidance of horticulturist Upadhyay. Both the farmers have already dug a few 2.5ft x 2.5ft pits. They learned to plant the saplings making proper layers of ash, compost manure and mud. After the plantation, they put water on the orange plants and mulched with the leaves and grasses. After the plantation, we distributed 57 saplings of orange to 12 farmers at the premises of Seti Devi Primary School. Eleven farmers including Chandra Bahadur Tamang, Achyout Prasad Poudel, Prem Hari Poudel, Hari Krishna Mainali, Mana Raj Tamang, Kanchhi Tamang, Dipendra Prasad Poudyal, Ganga Maya Tamang, Subba Singh Tamang, Durga Prasad Mainali, and Ramkala Poudel received 5 saplings each and Indira Koirala received 2 saplings.
Secondly, we demonstrated the systematic way of planting fruit sapling at the farmland of farmer Iman Singh Tamang in the presence of local farmers in Kalimati. He has already dug a few 2.5ft x 2.5ft pits. The farmers learned to plant a pear sapling making proper layers of ash, compost manure and mud under the guidance of horticulturist Upadhyay. After the plantation, they put water on the pear sapling and mulched with the leaves and grasses. After the plantation, we distributed 129 fruit saplings (54 of kiwi, 61 of apple and 14 of pears) ranging between 2 and 15 to 20 farmers. We distributed 15 fruit saplings to Chet Maya Tamang, 13 saplings to Padam Bahadur Tamang, 11 sapings to Krishan Tamang, 8 saplings each to Kusum Maya Tamang and Marsang Tamang, 7 saplings each to Iman Singh Tamang and Bhim Bahadur Tamang, 6 saplings each to Lal Kumari Tamang, Hira Kaji Tamang, Lal Maya Tamang and Mendo Tamang, 5 saplings each to Kanchhi Sorali Magar, Jagat Tamang, Purna Bahadur Sorali Magar, Sorali Magar, and Tirtha Tamang, 4 saplings each to Kumar Ale, and Sarki Man Tamang, 3 saplings each to Ambar Ale and Dev Bahadur Sorali Magar and 2 saplings to Chiti Maya Sorali Magar.
At last, we distributed 214 fruit saplings (107 of kiwi, 68 of apple and 39 of pear) ranging between 1 and 24 to 28 farmers in Kot Timal. We distributed 24 saplings to Lal Man Tamang, 20 saplings to Ram Sharan Koirala, 18 saplings to Keshav Raj Koirala, 14 saplings to Shiva Prasad Pandey, 10 saplings to Uddhav Koirala, 9 saplings each to Lal Dhwoj Tamang, Gyanja Man Tamang, Guna Raj Tamang and Marich Man Lama, 8 saplings to Rammani Koirala, and Bishnu Raj Bhandari, 7 saplings each to Narayan Prasad Pandey, and Uttam Bahadur Badal, 6 saplings each to Bhim Bahadur Tamang, Pasang Tamang and Hari Sharan Koirala, 5 saplings each to Bhairab Bahadur Koirala, Basudev Koirala, Ramhari Koirala, Ningma Tamang and Indra Raj Bhandari, 4 saplings each to Pramod Koirala, 3 saplings each to Sudarshan Bhurtel, Baburam Koirala, Dev Raj (Umesh) Khakurel, and Binod Bahadur Koirala, 2 saplings to Pabitra Koirala and 1 sapling to Ramhari Khakurel. The farmers are well-aware of the systematic way of plantation, so we did not hold any demonstration at the Kot Timal village.
After the plantation, horticulturist Upadhyay spent a little time interacting with the farmers at these villages. The farmers shared some issues related to pests and diseases and asked him how to control them. He gave some useful tips on controlling them and to care and grow these fruit saplings properly. The farmers expressed their sincere gratitude to Pax Earth for providing fruit saplings for farming over the last few years. They have requested to continue providing the fruit saplings in the next years too. They have assured the Pax team that they will apply the skills and knowledge they gained from Pax Earth and involve themselves in fruit farming effectively.
All these fruit saplings are grafted fruit saplings. By the next day, all the farmers could manage to plant their fruit saplings properly. The grafted kiwi sapling will start to yield fruits in 2 to 3 years, grafted apple and pear saplings will start to yield fruits in 3 to 4 years, and grafted orange tree will start to yield fruits in 2 to 3 years. We should not be surprised even if they yield in lesser time as the quality of these fruit saplings are very good. Generally, the grafted fruit saplings produce fruits sooner than the seedling fruit saplings. Hence, the farmers prefer the grafted fruit saplings over the seedling fruit saplings.
Although we are still at experimental phase, we could identify kiwi fruits and lemons are highly appropriate fruits for selling based on production quantity and quality, as well as market potential. In the next two years, we can identify the market potential for apple, pear, and orange too. We have been providing fruit trees management workshops for empowering the farmers with important skills and knowledge for managing fruit trees every year since 2021. We organised the fruit trees management workshops for the farmers of Kalimati, Kot Timal and Poudelthok on January 25 and 26, 2024. We received the demand list for the winter fruit plants from the same workshops. These farmers are not only encouraged to involve in planting and growing new fruit saplings for the last 4 years but also happy to see their older fruit trees are yielding quality fruits in larger quantity.
As an encouragement to best performing farmers, we have started to provide incentives such as cash incentives, financial support for creating infrastructure, full subsidy on certain fruit saplings, and useful tools (secateur, pruning saw, and grafting knife) from this year. We appreciated two farmers Ramhari Khakurel and Lal Man Tamang with financial incentives for creating infrastructure as both had created permanent trellis for their respective kiwi fruit gardens at the fruit tree management workshop held in Kot Timal recently. In addition, we handed over one secateur and one pruning saw to Ramhari Khakurel for producing 7Kg kiwi fruits in less than 2 years of planting.
The beauty of this project is the economic contribution from the farmers in buying fruit saplings. We have been providing 50 percent subsidy on the fruit saplings at Kot Timal and Kalimati while 50 percent cost has been borne by the farmers. As the project is under trial phase in Poudelthok, we provided 100 percent subsidy for the fruit saplings. The increasing number of beneficiaries and increasing demand for the fruit saplings reflect that the farmers are highly encouraged towards fruit farming. More importantly, the active involvement and the economic contribution of the farmers is quite important for the success and sustainability of the project.
We expect once these farmers can create a sustainable fruit garden at their farmland, they not only can enjoy fresh nutritious fruits but also generate incomes and improve livelihoods from selling the surplus fruits. The beauty of the entire village will improve. The trees absorb carbon dioxide and release oxygen, help to mitigate climate change and reduce global warming. This fruit garden project is a small but important contribution to the environment and earth. Pax Earth is committed to a clean, green, and sustainable earth. Nevertheless, we are happy to contribute to earth and environment by planting more trees year on year.
Reported by PEN Secretariat!
