HTCC employs seven Village Development Communities (comprised almost entirely of Nepalese women) who weave, collect, propagate and tend to their village lands.
- WEAN (Women Entrepreneurs Association of Nepal) Co-ops weave bamboo baskets for coffee, tea and hot coco. This bamboo is grown within their own village lands, where it thrives as an additional cash crop for them. Providing equal opportunities for all villages who live within the native habitat for Bamboo (low hill) in the Himalayas! WEAN provides additional skills training to women who grow it so they may begin to weave for local, regional, national and international Bamboo basket markets–like HTCC!
- The Laprak Village Development Community is comprised entirely of women, from distinct family backgrounds, including Gurung. These women plant several species of Himalayan hardwoods in the forests surrounding their villages. This sustainably harvested hardwood crop (usually pine varietals) is used for firewood to warm the village as well as traded regionally to surrounding villages for cash. There is an indigenous varietal of Wintergreen, used in tea to help care for the joints of the body and arthritic pain that grows here. The women have started a nursery for these plants to use as an additional crop for their village lands.
- Ashrang Village development community employs several cooperative farms and farming families who lease land. The diversification of their cash crops, with growing indigenous botanicals doubles the national average of family income for this area of the world. They cultivate and harvest several species of immune-boosting botanicals like cinnamon leaf, gurjo stem, amala fruits and montala trees. The largest farm co-op in the Ashrang Village Community grows green cardamom seeds for local and international markets.
- Gorkha Bazaar is the main village commerce center of Gorkha district, a district in Central Nepal well known for their famous food market. They have the best local Nepalese goods, like Lapraki potatoes! Get ready and stock up for your trek, this is the staging point to reach Langtang Himal and a pass to the Tibetan plateau. Many botanicals from surrounding villages trade their herbs here to herb traders in India; but Tibetans also often venture to Gorkha for purchasing rare species of Himalayan medicinal and aromatic plants–Gorkha valley is a well-known, extremely bio-diverse place for indigenous and commercially traded herbs. Amala fruits are one of the most prominent herbs used in Tibetan medicine (Emblica officinale) and are abundant in this valley.
- Chhoprak Village development group is comprised of several, indigenous Nepalese tribes. We work with a family tribe of “jarabhuti” who collect regional medicinal and aromatic plants with over 500 years of knowledge of their medicinal and aromatic benefits. This village co-op also cultivates Himalayan Long pepper (Piper longum) used to help respiratory illness. Chhoprak is involved with other sustainable crops of Amala fruits, along with two other species found in the Triphala (3) formula of Ayurvedic medicine (T. belerica; T. chebula). Women help with the processing of most culinary and medicinal plants in the village, as well as with wild-harvesting them from surrounding village lands accessing larger, regional herb markets.
- Gorepani Village development is comprised entirely of Nepalese women. They sustainably harvest cinnamon barks from forested village lands. They also grow barks of ashoka tree, lemongrass and spearmint leaves.
Higher altitude villages, which grow several indigenous medicinal and aromatic plant roots are actively involved with their local and national herb trades with India. There have been several species of medicinal and aromatic roots from these higher altitude villages that, due to over-harvesting, are threatened with extinction. Three years ago, “Jatamansii”, a rare, aromatic root herb closely related to Valerian root (10X more potent), was placed on the endangered species list for the first time and banned for export in crude form from Nepal. Jatamansii (Nardostachys jatamansii) remains banned today.
Many rare, medicinal and aromatic plants, indigenous to the Himalayan valleys of Nepal are grown on lower altitude village lands through the “Jarabhuti Friendship Gardens” for educational and conservation purposes as well as continuation of local and regional trade within Nepal.
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