Panchakanya Agriculture Cooperative Limited

The roots of the Panchakanya Agriculture Cooperative go back to a tourist office in Kathmandu, where Uddav had worked as a travel agent for a decade. He noticed that a growing number of his clients were asking about restaurants and markets where they might find natural and organic foods from local producers. When he needed to take over responsibility for his family’s farm in Thaligun, he decided to try his hand at organic farming.

Uddav’s instincts as a tour agent kicked in again, only this time he was introducing other farmers to his organic methods. He raised awareness about the impacts of pesticide use on long-term soil productivity, the health of farmer families, and the nutrition of their consumers. The initial reaction from other farmers, however, was skeptical. They worried that organic farming methods couldn’t generate sufficient yields or profits.

The Panchakanya Agriculture Group, loosely formed in 2001, was essentially a platform for Uddav going door-to-door to make his case for organics more effectively. Slowly, concern over about public health and soil health grew, as did awareness of a growing market opportunity for the sale of organics in Kathmandu. Among the first 20 founder members of the group, men outnumbered women three to one. But by May 2003, the men handed power over to the women of their communities and made the group exclusively a women’s organization. Several months later, in July 2003, the Panchakanya Agriculture Group was formally launched as a women’s agricultural group.

“We initially lacked the knowledge to manage pests,” recalls Uddav. “In the first year, ninety percent of the pea crop was destroyed as the farmers did not know any alternatives to the application of pesticides.” The key to solving these problems was the involvement of DADO. The July 2003 launch ceremony for the women’s agricultural group declared the village a “Pesticide Free Area” and invited a representative of DADO, Dila Ram Bhandari, to help.

Impressed with the group’s commitment to finding new production methods, Dila dedicated himself to helping the village farmers make the transition. He brought in additional expertise from Winrock International’s Farmer- to-Farmer program. He helped the group secure four sources of government funding to build a village road and a produce collection center. And he introduced the enterprise to OneCert, Inc USA, an organic certification organization. Samuel Welch, president of OneCert, later provided technical assistance as a Winrock Farmer-to- Farmer volunteer.

But, the organization was not quite done evolving. By 2004, the members had decided to reincorporate as an official women’s cooperative under the name “Panchakanya Agriculture Cooperative,” making women the formal member-owners.

Today, Panchakanya is much better equipped to handle pests and productivity concerns. Manure is now transformed into compost on member farms. Pea plant pests are managed with the application of locally made “compost tea.” According to Bhoj Raj Fuyal, “We have also been successful in managing the tomato blight problem— reducing its incidence by forty to fifty percent—by spraying with organic pesticides that are locally produced with plant extracts. We are proud of this achievement.”