Supporting farmers’ rights
How the National Farmers Group Federation is influencing agricultural policy frameworks to support smallholders, women, landless and marginalised farmers.
The landscape in which the Chabeli Farmer Group operates (Photo: NFGF)
The National Farmers Group Federation (NFGF) has provided farmers’ groups with sustained advocacy and technical facilitation support across 63 municipalities to help formulate and implement local agricultural acts.
These acts aim to address smallholders’ priorities through new provisions for: agricultural insurance, categorised farmer identification (farmer ID cards), leasehold farming areas for landless farmers, community seed systems, farmer field business schools (FFBS) and targeted services for women, marginalised and smallholder farmers.
Building on these innovations, at the federal level, NFGF also played a key role in shaping the National Agriculture Bill, drafted by the Nepal government in 2024–2025. The draft bill includes progressive provisions for smallholder farmers on organic farming promotion, agricultural entrepreneurship, product certification, farmer ID cards, and farmers’ rights and social protection.
Forest and Farm Facility activities
The Forest and Farm Facility (FFF) provided critical financial and technical support directly to NFGF in support of this work. Finance enabled NFGF to organise a series of policy dialogues at community, municipal and national levels. Technical support built the capacity of NFGF leaders on policy engagement, evidence-based advocacy and negotiation.
FFF support also enabled technical facilitation to translate grassroots demands into policy language, and enabled NFGF to initiate and strengthen Kishan Chautari (deliberative, policy-learning platforms designed to foster dialogue between local communities and policymakers) as well as engagement with local government to collaboratively develop local agriculture acts in targeted municipalities.
Significance of impact
As a result of these advocacy and policy amendments, local governments have initiated systematic, budget-backed agricultural programmes aligned with the local agricultural acts. Among the impacts, 779 landless farmers from 36 farmer groups are now engaged in leasehold farming and transitioning toward enterprise-oriented agriculture.
Federal processes have also begun farmer listing and categorised farmer ID systems, laying the foundation for targeted subsidies, insurance and social security across the whole country.
Conclusion
With FFF support, NFGF has helped to formulate and implement local agricultural acts that address smallholders’ priorities. In turn, this has influenced the development of federal-level agricultural policy frameworks that will support smallholder, women, landless and marginalised farmers across the whole of Nepal.
Further reading
The resilience of agrobiodiversity: the story of Nepal's Chabeli Farmer Group, Forest and Farm Facility (2023)
Insight: Agroforestry entrepreneurship by smallholder farmers – regreening Nepal, Duncan Macqueen (2025)
Advancing agrobiodiversity: why organisations of smallholders and Indigenous Peoples are vital, Duncan Macqueen (2024), research report