Emergence of new player in coffee production

Kathmandu, July 6

The answer to the general knowledge question – the district famous for coffee production in Nepal – has changed to Kavrepalanchok from Gulmi.

Till now, Gulmi is known as the district with the best coffee farming and products. But, the district is not even among the top three coffee producing districts in terms of the coffee farmers, farming areas and production quantity.

Kavreplanchok has topped all other districts of the country in all three categories, found the recently Commercial Coffee Farming Survey 2018 conducted by the Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS), a statistical body under the National Planning Commission.

“Kavrepalanchok district produces 221 tons of coffee from 104.3 hectare farm. The district has 943 coffee farmers,” reported CBS. “In terms of the land used to produce coffee, Lalitpur is second and Syangja third while Pyuthan has a coffee farming area of 0.8 hectare land, lowest in the country.”

Likewise, Sindhupalchok and Syangja have the second and largest number of coffee farmers with 753 and 708 growers producing the beverage raw material respectively.

CBS concluded that commercial coffee farming has been expanded to 32 districts and 973 hectares land across the country, and 6,346 farmers are involved in it. They produce about 1,573 tons fresh cherry.

But coffee farming is not practiced in Province 2, Karnali and Sudurpaschim while Province 3 tops the country in terms of size of production and land used.

The survey has found some interesting results like 71.8 per cent farmers are satisfied with their coffee production, 50 per cent said that the market was good for their product, and 54.3 per cent said that the price of coffee was satisfactory.

But, 60 per cent farmers said that the availability of government technician was poor and 43 per cent did not know the service of the Tea and Coffee Development Board. Another discouraging fact found by the survey is the coffee is the main source of income for only 11 per cent of the producers.

Likewise, only 50 per cent of the farmers have idea about the minimum support price, and a mere 2.8 per cent have obtained loan facility for coffee farming.

Nepali coffee is almost organic since 96 per cent farmers are following organic method of farming, read the report.

Published in The Rising Nepal daily on 7 July 2019.