Over the next five years in Nepal, Feed the Future aims to help an estimated 165,000 vulnerable Nepali women, children and family members—mostly smallholder farmers—escape hunger and poverty. In conjunction with the Global Health Initiative, more than 393,000 children will be reached with services to improve their nutrition and prevent stunting and child mortality. Significant numbers of additional rural populations will achieve improved income and nutritional status from strategic policy engagement and institutional investments.

Feed the Future Nepal will support the Government of Nepal’s efforts through balanced interventions in high value vegetable value chains and complementary support to rice, maize, lentils, and livestock under an integrated farming systems approach.

To meet its objectives, Feed the Future Nepal is making core investments in three key areas:

1. Increased Agricultural Production. Feed the Future will support commercially driven agricultural transformation, led by change agents, with the goal of increasing smallholder farmer incomes. This will be achieved through sustainable intensification of high value vegetables along with rice, maize, lentils, and livestock under a farming systems approach, aggregation and marketing, and targeted productive infrastructure such as multi-use water systems and post-harvest storage centers.

Specifically, Feed the Future will support increased agricultural productivity through:

• Introducing high value crops and technologies to increase yields
• Providing training and technical support to change agents
• Expanding small scale irrigation
• Linking farmers to markets by strengthening /establishing value chains
• Improving small scale market infrastructure 

2. Nutrition and Hygiene. Feed the Future will support capacity building to deliver nutrition and hygiene education to targeted households.

Feed the Future will support improved nutrition through:

• Increasing the production and consumption of nutritious food products
• Improving hygiene and access to safe water
• Creating a cadre of thousands of community facilitators and nutrition/hygiene volunteers

3. Integration of Vulnerable Groups. Feed the Future will support literacy and entrepreneurship training led by local leaders, which targets the most vulnerable individuals in the community (e.g., youth, women, lower caste and ethnic and religious minority groups). These groups have traditionally been excluded from full participation in Nepal’s political, economic and social life and suffer varying levels of discrimination.

Throughout the program there is a focused effort to incorporate these vulnerable groups, including:

• Providing literacy, nutrition and entrepreneurial skills training
• Promoting female-friendly farming practices
• Targeting all family members with behavior change education

Target Regions

U.S. Government investments through Feed the Future will focus on 16 to 20 districts in the Terai and lower Hills and will reach people in the Far-Western, Mid-Western, and Western regions. The Terai is the granary of Nepal and, together with the Hills, contains the most arable land and fertile soils. Reasons for focusing on this region include higher sub-regional hunger indexes, incidences of asset sale as coping strategy, levels of outmigration, and numbers of female-headed households.

Specifically, Feed the Future Nepal is expected to concentrate on the following geographic areas:

• 6 districts in the Far-Western Region: Achham, Baitadi, Dadeldhura, Doti, Kailali, and Kanchanpur
• 10 districts in the Mid-Western Region: Banke, Bardia, Dailekh, Dang, Jajarkot, Pyuthan, Rolpa, Rukum, Salyan, and Surkhet
• 4 districts in the Western Region: Arghakhachi, Gulmi, Kapilvastu, and Palpa

Highlights

Linking Agriculture to Household Nutrition. A key characteristic of the Feed the Future Nepal strategy is the linkage between agriculture and nutrition. These components are complementary and will be carried out through the same funding mechanism, for men and women in the target households. Feed the Future Nepal will enhance nutrition by adopting a value chain approach. On the supply side, nutrition will be improved in three ways: 1) production of nutritious foods for the household; 2) sale of agricultural products, which generate income for the purchase of nutritious foods; and 3) purchase and distribution of these same farmer-produced nutritious foods through nutrition programs that target smallholders as beneficiaries. The demand side will address critical access and utilization functions that contribute to improving the nutritional status of smallholder farming families, including resource allocation and food preparation within households.

Integrating Vulnerable Populations. Literacy, life skills, and entrepreneurial training will empower women, youth and ethnic minorities to take full advantage of agricultural and nutrition interventions and fully integrate the target population into market-led initiatives. Feed the Future will build the capacity of community leaders to deliver basic literacy and entrepreneurship education to disadvantaged youth, women and lower castes. USAID/Nepal’s previous experience has shown that literacy, numeracy, and life skills training have transformational impact, especially for poor rural women. These women are not only inspired but also empowered to make informed decisions about family finances and nutrition.

Collaboration with the Global Health Initiative. As part of its activities under the Global Health Initiative, USAID/Nepal has awarded a five-year Integrated Nutrition Program called Suaahara. Suaahara is a community-based program that focuses on improving nutrition; maternal, newborn, and child health; family planning; water, sanitation and hygiene; home-based gardening; and behavior change communication. Global Health Initiative funding will be used for nutrition interventions under Feed the Future.

Climate Change Considerations. Feed the Future implementation will be closely coordinated with the Global Climate Change Initiative. As part of this initiative, USAID/Nepal is launching a program that aims to reduce threats to biodiversity and address climate change vulnerabilities. The Global Climate Change Initiative will focus on interventions in priority landscapes and enabling the national policy environment. One of its priority areas is the Terai Arc Landscape, which partially overlaps with Feed the Future’s geographic focus. Convergence of geographic areas will allow the U.S. Government to integrate tools (e.g., conservation agriculture, use of weather data, and climate change models) for decision-making on crop and variety selection, land use planning, and improved understanding of irrigation and water management.