Until a few years ago, most of the farmers in Falametar, Khanikhola Rural Municipality-2, who were busy harvesting corn, are now found tending to coffee plants. The coffee plants have sprouted. The farmers are busy weeding and tending to them.

Earlier, most of the farmers here were limited to cultivating corn, millet, mustard and fenugreek. The production of which made it difficult for the farmers to make ends meet. The farmers of Falametar are now gradually getting rid of that difficulty. Instead of grain crops, they are now turning to coffee farming (cash crop). Most of them have coffee plants in their fields.

55-year-old Tilak Bahadur Bal of Falametar looks relaxed these days. Daily work like caring for crops, tilling, and harvesting has not made him bored. He arranges his time for coffee harvesting. ‘Earlier, planting corn in this field used to be a lot of trouble,’ he said. ‘Now planting coffee does not cause such trouble. Weeding is enough from time to time, and if there is a disease, pesticides are applied. You do not have to work hard like other crops.’

According to him, coffee can also be profitable compared to other crops. It has been 4 years since he started coffee farming commercially. It has been two years since he started selling coffee fruits. ‘You can get better profit from coffee than other crops,’ he said. ‘500 coffee plants yielded an income of 8/9 lakhs.’ According to him, we cannot earn so much income by planting corn, mustard, and fenugreek. He said that coffee can be a good source of income with little effort and low investment.

Ranabahadur Thokar planted coffee for the first time in Mahadevtar in 2072 BS. At that time, coffee farming was not very popular. It is not that there were no questions about what it would be like to plant a new plant, whether it would be good or not. He initially started coffee farming with 200 plants in 1 ropani. Now he has 1,000 coffee plants in his garden. Coffee started producing within three years of planting. According to him, the coffee market at that time was not very good. At that time, it was sold for 250 rupees per kg. He said that in the last year, the price of coffee has been increasing. According to him, the price of coffee has been increasing from 560, 640, 900, and now it is being sold for 1,100 rupees.

Punya Kumari Khulal of Ramtar started coffee farming 3 years ago after seeing examples from farmers in the village that coffee farming can bring good income. She realized that coffee can bring better benefits than corn, rice, and mustard after selling coffee herself. ‘It has not been many years since I planted coffee,’ she said, ‘I started selling it from the beginning. The first year I sold 17 kg of coffee, this time I sold 40 kg and earned 47 thousand. The price is also good, so this year will be good.’ Since she is in the initial stage, she is confident that she can reap good benefits from coffee and that she can benefit from it. According to her, coffee can bring more income than corn, mustard, and phapar.

Along with the expansion of coffee in the village, the nursery business has also grown. Padam Bahadur Gole has an experience that it was not easy to run a nursery in the early days. ‘Initially, when I had 3,000 coffee plants, it was very difficult to sell them,’ he said. ‘I used to carry them on my back to sell them to villages and few people would buy them. Now farmers are more knowledgeable.’ According to him, earlier, even when they carried them on their backs, they would not sell, so farmers would go to nurseries looking for plants. ‘Now, a single farmer carries 3-400 plants,’ he said. ‘This year alone, 14,000 plants were sold. Now, it is not enough to plant according to the demand of farmers.’

Most of the farmers in Khanikhola Rural Municipality have opted for coffee farming instead of corn, mustard, and phapar, from which they have started earning good income. Abiral Lopchan, who has been cultivating coffee on five ropanis of land for the past five years, is planning to expand his cultivation. He also sells coffee plants. ‘Coffee farming is many times more profitable than corn farming,’ he said, ‘Last year, we earned Rs 200,000 and this year, around Rs 400,000 from coffee. As it is in the initial stage, production is low. Once it starts yielding good fruits, the income will also increase.’ Since it is comparatively profitable, he has decided to expand coffee farming. Now, he plans to operate a coffee farm and nursery in 10 ropanis.

According to him, although there is a lot of potential in coffee farming, Khanikhola Rural Municipality is geographically remote and lags behind in infrastructure development. Due to this, he lamented that the farmers here are facing difficulties in agricultural work. ‘There is no road, no vehicles, it is difficult to send the goods we produce to the market,’ he said, ‘There are plants in the nursery, but we are not able to deliver those plants to the farmers on time. Even if only the road was built, it would have been easier for farmers to transport goods. The problem of irrigation is also the same.’

Recently, farmers have been attracted to coffee farming not only in Khanikhola 2 but also throughout the municipality. The rural municipality has put coffee farming as a priority and launched various programs to attract farmers. The rural municipality has been implementing the ‘Whoever produces, gets a subsidy’ program for the past three years and has aimed to increase the active participation of farmers in coffee farming.

Under this program, farmers will receive a direct subsidy based on the coffee they produce themselves, said Indra Bahadur Thing, chairman of the rural municipality. According to him, farmers’ attraction towards coffee farming has increased after being given a subsidy of Rs 35 per kg to farmers under the ‘Whoever produces, gets a subsidy’ policy.

He said that the program was launched with the aim of making the subsidy distribution process simple, transparent and farmer-friendly. He said that Khanikhola Rural Municipality, in collaboration with Bagmati Province and District Agricultural Development Office, is encouraging farmers through plant distribution, irrigation facilities, technology transfer, training and equipment support in areas with potential for coffee cultivation. ‘In Falametar, 263 out of 264 households have cultivated coffee,’ he said. ‘As the soil and climate here are suitable for coffee cultivation, Ward 2 Falametar has been declared a complete coffee pocket area.’

According to him, commercial coffee cultivation has been expanded in all seven wards. About two lakh seedlings have been planted. He said that it is estimated that 200 to 300 million rupees will be brought in annually when all the seedlings start producing from next year. According to him, coffee cultivation has become not just a crop, but a means of rural development. He said that the production-based subsidy and technology-friendly farming system have increased the confidence of farmers.

The District Agricultural Development Office has stated that coffee cultivation and production in Kavre has been increasing for the past few years. The office's three-year data shows that coffee cultivation and production in Kavre has increased. In the fiscal year 2079/80, 43 metric tons of coffee were produced in an area of ​​292 hectares. In 2080/81, 74.4 metric tons of coffee were produced in an area of ​​342 hectares.

The statistics mention that 76 metric tons of coffee were produced in an area of ​​358 hectares in 2081/82. Among the 13 local levels of Kavre, Mahabharat and Khanikhola rural municipalities produce the most coffee, said Kul Prasad Dawadi, head of the District Agricultural Development Office, Kavre. According to him, a coffee promotion program has been running in these two municipalities since last year with the support and collaboration of Bagmati Province, District Agricultural Development Office and local municipalities.