The Organic Village “The Taste of Nepal”
The Organic Village is a Dutch-Nepalese Herbs and Spice processing and trading company. The partners TOV Europe and TOV Nepal are working on setting up a new, modern, environmental friendly, processing facility for organic herbs and spices in Nepal that meet international food safety requirements.
Raw materials are organic herbs and spices from Nepalese farmers, and the finished products will be organic processed herbs and spices for the international market . The herbs and spices are cleaned, dried, sliced or grounded and packed ready to ship Nepalese spices. New fresh materials are brought to the facility by truck and stored in the warehouse. Processed herbs are also stored in the warehouse until an order from a buyer is ready to be shipped.
Nepalese farmers today are dependent on traders and foreign processing industry. Farmers still have to sell their harvest prior to processing at low prices to traders that bring the raw material to India as Nepal has no modern processing industry.
The little processing of herbs and spices that is done locally is very basic; this includes collection of the products from small land holding farmers mostly without motorized vehicles, manually sorting and cleaning of products, and non-automated packaging. Once the facility is operating, Nepalese farmers organised in cooperatives will be able to arrange long term supplying contracts receiving higher and more stable incomes. 400 farmers that are participating in this project will receive trainings on organic farming, financial management and organisation of cooperatives. The partners want to strengthen the farm management skills and market position of the farmers and provide a sustainable improve of their yield and income.