Helvetas Handeln für eine bessere Welt

The main objective of the riverbed farming project is to develop a system through which landless and land-poor people gain legally assured access to riverbed land during the dry season. Vast tracks of riverbeds are dry and fallow during the period from October to May. It is common land under the responsibility of village authorities. The land is fertile, yet it is currently not used. The project capacitates poor people so that they are able to cultivate horticultural products in riverbeds, link up with local and regional markets and generate thereby income. It also builds relationships with local government institutions and facilitates the signing of lease hold contracts between them and farmer groups. Currently, 3050 households participate in the riverbed farming project. The impacts are significant with an increase in household income of around 40%. HELVETAS Swiss Intercooperation has also initiated and developed an alliance of four development organisations, which have started to riverbed farming projects in other parts of the Tarai.

HELVETAS Swiss Intercooperation Nepal started to support riverbed farming with a small pilot initiative in 2006/07 with around 700 households in the Far Western Tarai of Nepal. In 2009 Helvetas Nepal won the Global Development Market Place competition of World Bank with the proposal on Riverbed Farming. This allowed the expansion of the project to include over 3000 landless and land-poor households. In 2011, HELVETAS Swiss Intercooperation started to work in two more adjacent districts while collaborating closely with the World Bank-funded Poverty Alleviation Fund.