• Supporting Organization: Agriterra Netherlands
• Supporting Organization Logo:
• Year: 2013
• Name of Organization: Central Tea Cooperative Federation Limited (CTCF) Nepal
• Organization Address : Ilam Municipality 9, Sera Ilam
• Project implementation areas: Ilam, Panchthar, Dhankuta, Taplejung and Jhapa
• Project Period: N/A
• Budget:

  N/A

• Supporting Organization: Agriterra Netherlands
• Supporting Organization Logo:
• Year: 2014
• Name of Organization: Central Tea Cooperative Federation Limited (CTCF) Nepal
• Organization Address : Ilam Municipality 9, Sera Ilam
• Project implementation areas: Ilam, Panchthar, Dhankuta, Taplejung and Jhapa
• Project Period: N/A
• Budget:

   Nrs. 7,286,700.00

Intervention: Goal & objectives

Goal: Overall goal is to contribute in sustained rural poverty reduction of smallholder tea farmers of Eastern districts of Nepal by increasing their income, and equally empower small farmer based organisations to provide better technical and management services.

Specific objectives: Key objectives of the Phase 3 Program:

1.    Entrepreneurial and organizational strengthening of primary cooperatives and its members
2.    Small Tea Processing Units (STPUs) in access to markets and enterprise development
3.    Lobby and advocacy focusing on a conducive environment and access to services for small tea farmers
4.    Improved financial management and Monitoring and Evaluation by CTCF

Project period: January 2014 until December 2014

Direct beneficiaries (m/f farmers and no. of farmer groups): 75 tea cooperatives 4,699 (M. 3,698, F. 1,001)

Budget:     
   
Total                    : Nrs. 7,286,700.00
Requested Contribution, Agriterra    : Nrs. 6,645,130.00 (back donor Finland)
Own contribution
a.    CTCF                : Nrs. 434,570.00
b.    Primary Cooperatives and DTCF : Nrs. 207,000.00

1.    Program Goal and Objectives

The overall goal is to contribute in sustained rural poverty reduction of smallholder tea farmers by increasing their income, and equally empower small farmer based organisations to provide better technical and management services. 

In this phase, Agriterra’s support will be focused on capacity building, business promotion, lobby & advocacy, and regular supervision and monitoring of district federations, cooperatives, and tea farmers. Specific objectives are as follows.

1.    Capacity building of tea cooperatives and farmers in their institutional building, resource mobilization, business planning etc.
2.    Enhance entrepreneurship and business skills of STPUs operated by cooperatives and other individuals.
3.    Lobby and advocacy works on various tea related issues faced by the tea farmers.
4.    Regular monitoring and supervision support to all tea stakeholders.

Program will be implemented by mobilizing District Tea Cooperative Federation (DTCF) and cooperatives. There will be additional experts both technical and marketing, and close backstopping coaching by Program Manager and Cooperative Facilitators.

2.    Activities, Results and Outreach
The program activities will focus on four major focus areas:

5.    Entrepreneurial and organizational strengthening of primary cooperatives and its members
6.    Small Tea Processing Units (STPUs) in access to markets and enterprise development
7.    Lobby and advocacy focusing on a conducive environment and access to services for small tea farmers
8.    Improved financial management and Monitoring and Evaluation by CTCF

In four major outputs, the following activities will be implemented and the details of each activity are briefly summarized below.
a.    OUTPUT A: ENTREPRENEURIAL AND ORGANIZATIONAL STRENGTHENING OF PRIMARY COOPERATIVES AND ITS MEMBERS


1.    Piloting of ‘Mycoop.’ training modules: a. MTOT to 4 people, b. Training to 15 cooperative leaders, managers and other 5 facilitators., c. Final delivery of training to the farmers
2.    Cooperative awareness training to 10 basic cooperatives
3.    Workshop on business plan (evaluation and implementation) of 8 cooperatives
4.    Business plan training for 10 new cooperatives including Lalitpur and Bojpur districts.
5.    Review of strategic plan of 4 districts DTCF, and prepare a new strategic plan of Lalitur DTCF.
6.    Support cooperatives in preparing proposals and final submissions.
7.    Cooperatives account keeping training for new and 20 young cooperatives.
8.    Cooperative management training to 20 cooperative
9.    Exposure visits to tea cooperatives
10.    Newsletter publication 2 times


b.    OUTPUT B:  SMALL TEA PROCESSING UNITS (STPUS) IN ACCESS TO MARKETS AND ENTERPRISE DEVELOPMENT


1.    Quality improvement – tea tasting
2.    Entrepreneurship skill training to cooperatives
3.    Market promotion and business linkages with national and international cooperatives
4.    Tea tasting interaction program for tea makers
5.    Quality improvements and skill development support to STPUs


c.    OUTPUT C: LOBBY AND ADVOCACY FOCUSING ON A CONDUCIVE ENVIRONMENT AND ACCESS TO SERVICES FOR SMALL TEA FARMERS


1.    Favourable tea policy amendment and implementation
2.    Soft loan
3.    Subsidy and grants on organic certifications, organic inputs
4.    Auction market centre
5.    Market promotion of made tea produced by STPUs
6.    Interaction with national level stakeholders (line ministries, Nepal Rastra Bank, NTCDB, Cooperative Board, Cooperative Department, NCF, Nepal Youth Foundation, Youth and Small Entrepreneurs Self-employment Fund, etc.,
7.    17th National tea day

d.    OUTPUT D: IMPROVED FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT AND MONITORING AND EVALUATION BY CTCF

1.    Coaching and monitoring of implemented activities through focal group and peer monitoring by members
2.    Establish and implement a tea MIS system (process monitoring) with key indicators engaging existing CTCF networks (cooperatives and groups) and regular reporting mechanism
3.    Maintain database of cooperatives, farmers on key indicators
4.    Supervision and Monitoring visits
5.    Coaching to operate and recordkeeping of newly installed PEARL software
6.    Prepare a full-fledged annual report, including financial report and share with members and outsiders


3.    Advisory services by Agriterra

Additional support services will be requested to the Agriterra for the following services that will be delivered to the tea beneficiaries. This will transfer knowledge and skills from the experts from Agripool.

a.    Marketing mission support to establish a separate marketing entity within CTCF for marketing of made tea produced by cooperatives and other individuals.
b.    Exposure visit to board members of CTCF for observation of tea cooperatives and processing module of Kenya or Sri Lanka. CTCF doesn't have an idea of tea cooperatives of other countries. So, CTCF would like to request for exposure visits to either Kenya or Sri Lanka.   
c.    Long-term (5 years) strategy plan of CTCF: CTCF requests Agriterra to support on preparing a long-term strategic plan of CTCF. In the past, CTCF has prepared 3 years short-term strategic plan (2013 -2015) in 2012. This new strategic plan from 2014 onwards will be a follow-up plan including the reviewing of the previous plan. CTCF would request Agriterra for involvement of international and national consultant. The previous plan does not address current issues and scope of the operations due to large capacities and export.
d.    Guidance marketing support to tea cooperatives for green leaf and made tea by the marketing export. CTCF does not have a sound human resources in the field of marketing, so CTCF would like to request Agriterra for provide the marketing expert with experience in national and international marketing knowledge on cooperative to guide/support for the green leaf and made tea marketing.
e.    ToT on ‘my.coop’: CTCF would like to be participants in the TOT on ‘my.coop’ training in Kathmandu which is going to organize by Agriterra and NACCFL on March 3 -7, 2014.
f.    ToT on FACT: Mr. Rabin Rai took a first phase of the FACT TOT in Philippines. CTCF would request to participate the second phase of ToT on FACT.

• Supporting Organization: Agriterra Netherlands
• Supporting Organization Logo:
• Year: January - June 2015
• Name of Organization: Central Tea Cooperative Federation Limited (CTCF) Nepal
• Organization Address : Ilam Municipality 9, Sera Ilam
• Project implementation areas: Ilam, Panchthar, Dhankuta, Taplejung and Jhapa
• Project Period: N/A
• Budget:

  N/A

1.    Program Goal and Objectives

The overall goal is to contribute in sustained rural poverty reduction of smallholder tea farmers by increasing their income, and equally empower small farmer based organisations to provide better technical and management services.  

In this phase, Agriterra’s support will be focused on capacity building, business promotion, lobby & advocacy, and regular supervision and monitoring of district federations, cooperatives, and tea farmers. Specific objectives are as follows.

1. Entrepreneurship and organizational strengthening of primary cooperatives and its members
2. Support Small Tea Processing Units (STPUs) in access to markets, and enterprise development
3. Lobby and advocacy works on various tea related issues faced by the tea farmers and cooperatives.
4. Financial management and monitoring and supervision supports to all tea stakeholders.

Program will be implemented by mobilizing District Tea Cooperative Federation (DTCF) and cooperatives. There will be additional experts both technical and marketing, and close backstopping coaching by Program Manager and Cooperative Facilitators.

2.    Expected Result, Output and Activities
The program activities will focus on following results

1. Additional 10% of cooperatives will be able to generate resources on their own and sustain in a long run.
2. Additional 5 % of STPUs will be capable to produce quality tea as per the tea standard and managed to sell in the competitive market.
3. There will be improvements in quality of green leaves produced by tea farmers. Additional 5% of the tea farmers will adopt IPM or organic tea farming technology.
4. Government and other stakeholders will be positive towards tea sector and there will be more investments to promote this sector. Some level of changes will be visibly seen in three key areas.
5. Updated database on key tea indicators (production, sales, exports, number of farmers/cooperatives, etc.)

In four major outputs, the following activities will be implemented and the details of each activity are briefly summarized below. 

Output 1: Entrepreneurship and organizational strengthening of primary cooperatives and its members

1. Conduct ToT on “my.coop” module 3 & 4 for 20 participants those who have already received training on module 1 & 2. After receiving this training they will further conduct trainings on module 3 and 4 through CFS approach)
2. Conduct full fledged training on “my.coop” module 3 and 4 for 6 cooperatives through Cooperative Field School (CFS) approach for 20 participants of each cooperative. ( which cooperatives were already complete module 1 and 2  in 2014 . 20 hours course , 4 hours  each day 2 class , 2.5 month a durations )
3. Conduct one day cooperative awareness training based on    \\\\\\\"my.coop\\\\\\\" module 1 & 2 for 5 weaker and young cooperatives.
4. Prepare Curriculum and reading books of ‘MY.Coop’ module 3 and 4.
5. Conduct five days ToT on business plan for 20 participants from DTCFs, BoDs, internal committee members of CTCF, potential primary cooperatives, and CFs.
6. Business plan training for 5 new member cooperatives by potential own human resources who got the ToT business plan. Expert will be hired for 2 or 3 days for finalization of the overall documents.
7. Support cooperatives in preparing project proposals
8. Coaching cooperatives in account keeping
9. Publication of newsletter
10. 10. Review of the ranking system of cooperative

Output 2: Support Small Tea Processing Units (STPUs) in access to markets, and enterprise development

1. Market promotion and business linkages with national and international cooperatives
2. Quality improvements and skill development supports to STPUs by conducting 5 days training (coaching types) to the tea technician of processing cooperatives to make speciality tea.

Output 3: Lobby and advocacy works on various tea related issues faced by the tea farmers and cooperatives.

Lobby and advocacy key areas:

1. Amendment in favourable tea policy
2. Soft loan
3. Subsidy and grants on organic certification, organic inputs, crop insurance.
4. Auction market centre
5. Market promotion of made tea
6. Interactions program with national level stakeholders  (remaining program 2014 )
7. Green leaf purchasing agreement with cooperatives and factories
8. Celebration of 18^th National tea day

Output 4: Financial management and monitoring and supervision supports to all tea stakeholders.

1. Coaching and monitoring of activities through focal group and peer monitoring by members
2. Regular updates on information of cooperatives progress
3. Supervision and monitoring visits
4. Coaching on operate PEARL monitoring software.

Update CTCF website.  

3.    Advisory services by Agriterra

1. FACT Training to the board members of CTCF and DTCFs -- FACT approach has been effective and practical. So, CTCF wants to extend training to its members and staffs of CTCF, and members of DTCFs.
2. Support in designing farmer led and affordable extension or advisory services programme (3 days workshop).
3. Training lead farmers and CTCF staffs on record keeping and bench marking. This will help in lobbying for better prices and support farmers in record keeping, first at the household level and also cooperative level. Farmers and cooperatives do not know the actual cost of production of green leaf. So, it is difficult to bargain with the processing factory to determine the green leaf price.
4. Support to prepare domestic marketing strategy and operational plan of Santinagar tea Shop located at New Baneshwor, Kathmandu.

• Supporting Organization: Agriterra Netherlands
• Supporting Organization Logo:
• Year: July - December, 2015
• Name of Organization: Central Tea Cooperative Federation Limited (CTCF) Nepal
• Organization Address : Ilam Municipality 9, Sera Ilam
• Project implementation areas: Ilam, Panchthar, Dhankuta, Taplejung and Jhapa
• Project Period: N/A
• Budget:

  Nrs. 254,890.00

Title: Grass-roots Entrepreneurship and Capacity Building of Cooperatives and CTCF

Name of organisation: Central Tea Cooperative Federation Ltd., Nepal

Location of project activities (intervention level: country / province / district name):

Location: Ilam, Panchthar, Tehrathum, Dhankuta, Lalitpur districts of Mechi, Koshi, and Bagamati zone

Country: Nepal

Intervention: Goal & objectives

Goal: Overall goal is to contribute in sustained rural poverty reduction of smallholder tea farmers of Eastern districts of Nepal by increasing their income, and equally empower small farmer based organisations to provide better technical and management services. 

Specific objectives: Key objectives of the Phase 4 Program:

1. Entrepreneurship and organizational strengthening of primary cooperatives and its members
2. Support Small Tea Processing Units (STPUs) in access to markets, and enterprise development
3. Lobby and advocacy works on various tea related issues faced by the tea farmers and cooperatives.
4. Financial management and monitoring and supervision supports to all tea stakeholders.

Project period: July 2015 until December, 2015

Direct beneficiaries (m/f farmers and no. of farmer groups): 87 tea cooperatives 5,376 (Male 4,165, Female 1,211)

Budget:                    

1.    Program Goal and Objectives

The overall goal is to contribute in sustained rural poverty reduction of smallholder tea farmers by increasing their income, and equally empower small farmer based organisations to provide better technical and management services.  

In this phase, Agriterra’s support will be focused on capacity building, business promotion, lobby & advocacy, and regular supervision and monitoring of district federations, cooperatives, and tea farmers. Specific objectives are as follows.

1. Entrepreneurship and organizational strengthening of primary cooperatives and its members
2. Support Small Tea Processing Units (STPUs) in access to markets, and enterprise development
3. Lobby and advocacy works on various tea related issues faced by the tea farmers and cooperatives.
4. Financial management and monitoring and supervision supports to all tea stakeholders.

Program will be implemented by mobilizing District Tea Cooperative Federation (DTCF) and cooperatives. There will be additional experts both technical and marketing, and close backstopping coaching by Program Manager and Cooperative Facilitators.

2.    Expected Result, Output and Activities
The program activities will focus on following results

1. Additional 10% of cooperatives will be able to generate resources on their own and sustain in a long run.
2. Additional 5 % of STPUs will be capable to produce quality tea as per the tea standard and managed to sell in the competitive market.
3. There will be improvements in quality of green leaves produced by tea farmers. Additional 5% of the tea farmers will adopt IPM or organic tea farming technology.
4. Government and other stakeholders will be positive towards tea sector and there will be more investments to promote this sector. Some level of changes will be visibly seen in three key areas.
5. Updated database on key tea indicators (production, sales, exports, number of farmers/cooperatives, etc.)

In four major outputs, the following activities will be implemented and the details of each activity are briefly summarized below. 

Output 1: Entrepreneurship and organizational strengthening of primary cooperatives and its members

1. Conduct ToT on “my.coop” module 3 & 4 for 20 participants those who have already received training on module 1 & 2. After receiving this training they will further conduct trainings on module 3 and 4 through CFS approach)
2. Conduct full fledged training on “my.coop” module 3 and 4 for 6 cooperatives through Cooperative Field School (CFS) approach for 20 participants of each cooperative. ( which cooperatives were already complete module 1 and 2  in 2014 . 20 hours course , 4 hours  each day 2 class , 2.5 month a durations )
3. Conduct one day cooperative awareness training based on \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\"my.coop\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\" module 1 & 2 for 5 weaker and young cooperatives.
4. Prepare Curriculum and reading books of ‘MY.Coop’ module 3 and 4.
5. Conduct five days ToT on business plan for 20 participants from DTCFs, BoDs, internal committee members of CTCF, potential primary cooperatives, and CFs.
6. Business plan training for 5 new member cooperatives by potential own human resources who got the ToT business plan. Expert will be hired for 2 or 3 days for finalization of the overall documents.
7. Support cooperatives in preparing project proposals
8. Coaching cooperatives in account keeping
9. Publication of newsletter

10. Review of the ranking system of cooperative

Output 2: Support Small Tea Processing Units (STPUs) in access to markets, and enterprise development

1. Market promotion and business linkages with national and international cooperatives
2. Quality improvements and skill development supports to STPUs by conducting 5 days training (coaching types) to the tea technician of processing cooperatives to make speciality tea.

Output 3: Lobby and advocacy works on various tea related issues faced by the tea farmers and cooperatives.

Lobby and advocacy key areas:

1. Amendment in favourable tea policy
2. Soft loan
3. Subsidy and grants on organic certification, organic inputs, crop insurance.
4. Auction market centre
5. Market promotion of made tea
6. Interactions program with national level stakeholders  (remaining program 2014 )
7. Green leaf purchasing agreement with cooperatives and factories
8. Celebration of 18^th National tea day

Output 4: Financial management and monitoring and supervision supports to all tea stakeholders.

1. Coaching and monitoring of activities through focal group and peer monitoring by members
2. Regular updates on information of cooperatives progress
3. Supervision and monitoring visits
4. Coaching on operate PEARL monitoring software.
5. Update CTCF website.  

3.    Advisory services by Agriterra

1. FACT Training to the board members of CTCF and DTCFs -- FACT approach has been effective and practical. So, CTCF wants to extend training to its members and staffs of CTCF, and members of DTCFs.
2. Support in designing farmer led and affordable extension or advisory services programme (3 days workshop).
3. Training lead farmers and CTCF staffs on record keeping and bench marking. This will help in lobbying for better prices and support farmers in record keeping, first at the household level and also cooperative level. Farmers and cooperatives do not know the actual cost of production of green leaf. So, it is difficult to bargain with the processing factory to determine the green leaf price.

Support to prepare domestic marketing strategy and operational plan of Santinagar tea Shop located at New Baneshwor, Kathmandu.