Contribution of Coffee Farmingon Rural Community Development:A Case Study of Maijogmai Rural Municipality Ward No.4of Ilam District

Abstract

Coffee (Coffea) is the newly developing important high value cash crop mainlycultivated in the mid hill sides, altitude between 800m–16oom, especially in loamand sandy loam mud. Including Nepal manycountries in the world. In recent yearsthe production of coffee is increasing along with its demand and consumption inNational and International markets, but its export quantity from Nepal is decreasing.It’s because the high demand and consumption in National market. The demand ofcoffee in International market is veryhigh because of its quality and taste. But only1% to 2% has been supplied to the Global market due to problem in production.Therefore the acreage and quantity of production should be increased throughout thecountry. This research was attempted to study the current production of coffee, toexplore its contribution in income generating and to study the probability ofAgritourism in coffee. This study was carried out in Maijogmai Rural MunicipalityWard No 4 in Ilam District in 2019 using different community based participatorytechniques, secondary information and statistical analysis. The specific objective of the study are to find out the role of coffee cultivation in ruralcommunity development, to study the status of current coffee production and explorethe contribution in income generating activities to the rural farmers. Differentmethodologies have been used to collect various types of primary data likequestionnaire, field survey focus group discussion. Exploratory and descriptivemethods were used to analyze the data. The recent data of (NTCDB) shows that the coffee has cultivated in more than 43districts in the country. The yearly gross production of coffee is 513 metric tons greenbeans from 2650 hectors cultivated land. 32581 families are directly involved in thisfarming. The tolerate temperature range of coffee is from 4°C to 32°C but the suitabletemperature range for coffee is 12°C to 26°C, in the elevation from 800m to 1600mhigh from the sea level. The farmers have cultivated from 2 Ropani to 50 Ropani inthe research site. The majority of respondents were Janajatis (Indigenous people) andfollowed by Aaryan (kshetri and Brahman). The different annual income of farmersbefore starting coffee farming and after coffee farming were also studied and I foundthat the average annual income of farmers were 300 to 500% more from coffee farming in same area of land. Out of total 45 house hold in research area 33.33percent household were selected as sampling. Out of total sampling 80 percentrespondent sell ripe cherry to the local collecting centers and rest of the respondentsell green bean coffee to the National and International markets directly afterprocessing, with the purpose of getting better price. I also found that farmers have been practicing duel farming system. The infrastructuredevelopments were satisfiedand the whole life standard in the research area wascomparatively better