Nettle Story

How it can be moved forward

Where does the intervention stand

• The community is now well aware of the various processes of nettle processing and has got hands on experience of doing them.

• It is emerging as a livelihood option for the shg members, but the quantity of livelihood generated till now is not substantial enough to make it very attractive.

• Nettle availability is an issue, as the collection is a tedious process, and the distances are large. New clusters may have to be identified for the Raw Material availibility.

• Absence of technology at cluster level like carding, weaving effects the speed at which the venture will function, and too much waiting for the communities for processed nettle.

Strengths

• Full Nettle processing is now being done at the community level.

• Nettle is available in reasonably close distances.

• The community women need work, and Nettle is emerging as a interesting option for them to earn livelihood.

• The SHGs are emerging as institutions, and can be taken to an independent community enterprise level now.

• Himotthan has worked in all aspects of the process with the partners, and can easily allocate work to different players, as per their strengths.

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Weakness• Uttarakhand Nettle as a product is still to

be tested in the available market, and see if it can compete with nettle from Nepal etc.

• Currently all the technology components are not/cannot be made available at the community or cluster level, making this complicated process slower and less efficient in terms of cost and quality.

• The cost of production being very high, due to the manual collection and complicated processing, it will have to be seen, if the products can be competitive against yarn from silk and other competitors.

• The Advantages of Nettle like UV resistent, warm, high strength etc. are still in a theoritical discourse, but no documentary or scientific testing reports are available to build the case in this regard.

Opportunities• Once the market level demand is established and linkages

ascertained, it can become an attractive livelihood option for a variety of community level skill-sets.

• Its one of the most eco-friendly fiber, and raw material being available in plenty in Uttarakhand, and technical and institutional processes established through Himmothan, its time to go global.

• Nettle program, can be integrated with other livelihood programs, agriculture based, and MAP. This combination can provide a full year livelihood to our target communities.

• Availibility of local high quality wool in Uttarakhand, can be an advantage in mixing the two, and developing warm range of products for the international market.

Threats

• The program can fail at the market level, in absence of a concrete marketing initiative, as has been the case with many other national development programs.

• Institutional strengthening, is a tricky exercise, where the communities need handholding, but also need to be given freedom and ownership. Most programs cannot walk this tight rope, and fail at some point. This will be challenge for this program also.

• Like all other business processes, roles and jobs are distributed as per the efficiency levels, but in community programs, everything has to be done by the target community. This approach can make the end product unviable and undesirable. Clear strategy will be needed at this level.

What can be the next steps• Develop the diagrammatic process flow as per geography, and carry out the

processes, with the available fiber, so that community gets work, at a desirable rate.

• There is a need to increase the rates, if the process has to continue at community level, which can only happen if the market offers a good rate. Find the market.

• There are missing links in availability of facilities. These links need to be filled immediately through infrastructure strengthening.

• Need of partnerships at the marketing and final processing level. Doing everything in-house will make the process slow, and less market focussed, effecting the viability of the initiative.

• Community level extension has to be driven by the market orders, and rates should also be determined by the final rates offered. Not following this will lead to project running for some more time, but then loosing out due to lack of market pull.

Thank You