The ‘Strengthening the Agriculture Value Chains in Salyan and Sindhupalchok Districts of Nepal (SAVC)’ is a joint initiative of Local Initiatives for Biodiversity, Research and Development (LI-BIRD) and Welthungerhilfe (WHH) Nepal. The project aims to improve the livelihoods of 1,500 smallholder farmers through strengthening agricultural value chains. Similarly, the project is expected to achieve three results viz. i) establish One-Stop-Shops and operational cooperatives that will manage input supply and marketing of local agricultural produce, ii) establish and increase linkages of cooperatives for regular input supply, technical services, and selling of local agricultural produce, and, iii) improve institutional governance and management capacity of cooperatives.

As part of the project, LI-BIRD conducted a household survey and an assessment of six cooperatives to set the benchmark data and information against the indicators for goals and outcomes. This report includes the methodology and findings of the household survey and cooperative assessment exercise. The sample size for the household survey was determined by using the ‘’Raosoft Sample Size Calculator’’ at 95% confidence interval and 10% margin for error considering a district as a unit of sampling. One hundred and seventy one (171) households out of 1,523 project beneficiary households were randomly identified for the survey using the ‘select cases’ functions of SPSS statistical software. The household survey was administered by the project team and two externally hired agriculture graduates in July 2021. ‘AKVO FLOW’ software was used for collecting data.