Message from Mr. Tanka Jirel, Mayor of Jiri Municipality, Dolakha

June 25, 2021

We thank ANSAB and Aveda for partnering with Jiri Municipality for the piloting of PPCA program in Jiri. While the program activities focus on sustainable farm and forest-based management for community development in the Municipality, as the initial step, we have initiated working on organic agriculture and sustainable forest management. It is directly relevant to the Municipality’s vision of “clean Jiri, green Jiri, and organic Jiri”, and the capacity building at community level and formulating policy and programs at the municipality level have been well moving ahead. We can see increasing number of organized home-gardens contributing to increased food and nutrition security at the household level, also with the increasing number of farmers initiating organic farming at commercial scale. Few Jiri products, namely Jiri potato and Jiri kiwi are established in national level markets in Kathmandu and Pokhara. In some areas where lands used to remain as barren, farmers have initiated cultivation of vegetables and started consumption of vegetables, which is a new phenomenon.

A strategic plan on sustainable conservation and management of farm and forest resources has been developed with technical support from ANSAB. We hope it will be very instrumental to design programs and activities at the municipality level and to meet the development goal of the municipality. It is in the implementation stage, and for its implementation and to assist the organic movement of the municipality, there is continuous need of support from ANSAB. We hope that the partnership of municipality with ANSAB and Aveda will continue in the years to come.