Dairy article
An organic co-op is born
Thirteen neighboring farmers showed up at Gamcha Farm’s first community meeting, and Chase’s dream to turn her operation into a Nepalese-run co-op that would benefit indigenous farmers began to look feasible. Feasible, that is, if she could convince the farmers that organic methods would, in the end, yield more crops. To do this, Chase set aside one-quarter of her farmland to donate to individual farmers, and she organized workshops to teach organic practices with local conditions in mind. “We gave each person a plot of land on our land,” says Chase. “Each person divided their plot in half and used biointensive, double-digging processes on one side and their traditional way on the other.”
nuwakot milk production site
The Project:
Søbogaard and a local dairy in nearby medieval town of Bhaktapur, have made a joint venture, supported by Danida’s Business-to-Business Programme. The project is based on the planting of Danish elderberry trees for elderflower concentrate for organic icecream and organic juice. At Gamcha we have collected a variety of test material and plant nursery material, which we plant out in large production areas, altitudes. We are aiming at organic certification for all our acreage. (We arrange tours to our production fields and ice-cream factory.)
