Kathmandu, January 17

The Ministry of Industry (MoI) is all set to organise a week-long campaign to promote allo farming in the country from February 12.

Industry Minister Nabindra Raj Joshi said that MoI would launch a promotional campaign to encourage allo farming in different parts of the country. The MoI campaign includes providing technical knowledge to farmers on allo production and collecting problems being faced by farmers producing allo.

“Allo farming has a good future in the country as Nepali allo and allo-made products have high demand in foreign markets like Japan,” said Joshi, adding the campaign is being launched to encourage farmers towards allo farming.

As per MoI, farming of allo — commonly known as the Himalayan nettle or Nilghiri nettle — is basically carried out in 58 districts in the country and more than 40,000 people are directly involved in it.

Citing that farmers are facing low production problem of this fabric due to lack of good allo processing centres, Minister Joshi said that the government would set up large and sophisticated allo processing centres in 22 different locations across the country. MoI had initially planned to open such allo processing centres in 10 places and had requested for Rs 30 million from the Ministry of Finance to purchase allo processing machines.

MoI had estimated that one allo processing machine would cost around Rs three million and the machines would need to be imported. However, it said that it would set up such centres across 22 locations in the country after locally manufactured allo processing machines were available for Rs 900,000.

MoI believes the availability of better allo processing centres will not only increase the production of allo thread but also improve its quality. Though identified as a good base raw material for weaving carpets in Nepal, domestic carpet manufacturers have been importing allo threads from New Zealand in huge volumes as domestic producers are unable to supply as per demand.