Prachanda Man Shrestha1
Abstract
Coffee cultivation has a great potential to provide farmers a very good On-farm employment and income generation opportunities and is well adapted to the climatic conditions especially in the middle mountains of central and western Nepal with a range of altitude from 800 to 1600 masl. Despite the potentiality of improving livelihood of small-farmers and generating foreign currency by its export in the international niche market, coffee has received a little attention from the Government and other development agencies.
Estimated coffee production in Nepal in terms of green-bean in 2006 was 156 metric tons. There have been consistently increasing trends in area and production of coffee. Introduction of wet processing has improved the quality of Nepalese coffee and, thereby, added to its value at village level resulting in increased income to coffee producers and job opportunities to village processors. Export of Nepalese coffee to the international market increased from nine mt. in 2000AD to 80 mt. in 2006 AD.
Major bottleneck in the coffee sector is the lack of research to develop suitable production and processing technologies under Nepalese condition. Despite some risks and constraints, several opportunities have been observed in the sector. Proper policy interventions and coordinated efforts in addressing producers, processors and traders' needs such as their access to credit would help in the sustainable development of coffee industry to benefit the stakeholders in general and small resource holder producers in particular.