In the mid hills of Nepal, where there is less off farm opportunities, mainly the poor section of the society are engaged in NTFPs related occupation like collection and domestication to supplement their households need. The decreasing availability of the NTFP resources in the recent year has led people plant NTFPs to some limited extent in their private land in order to be able to augment the supply for the NTFPs. But the domestication of NTFPs is not as rapid as expected. So this study particularly focuses on the why the farmers are reluctant to adopt domestication. It tries to see the prospects and problems of domestication in the mid-hills of Nepal from economic, ecological and legal perspectives.

Required data was collected in the Ghatte Khola sub-watershed that covers part of Dolkha district in the central middle hills of Nepal. Two sets of structured questionnaires were used to interview the collectors and domesticators separately. Total 105 households were interviewed. Nine village level traders and eight district level traders were also interviewed to assess the marketing system and problems and constraints of marketing at traders level. Group discussion was also conducted to know the NTFPs found in the study area and a thorough hike of the watershed was done before the work was commenced to be familiar with the local people.

This study critically reviews and assesses the contribution of both the collected and domesticated NTFPs to the households economy and analyses the existing channels of NTFPs marketing, marketing capabilities of the farmers and methods to market their products. Analysis of existing market system of NTFPs reveals that it is the farmers to get low profit from the sale of the product. The district level middleman is the highest profit maker from its trade. This study finds that there are both legal and illegal factors that prevent farmers from obtaining equitable share from the trade of their products. The major problems with the market are mainly traders monopoly, fluctuating market and nontransparent market. People find domestication economically profitable than cereal crops. Still there are many constraints to domestication. This study finds economic constraints, marketing constraints, ecological constraints and legal constraints as most important factors influencing the farmers decision to adopt domestication.

This study also reviews the existing policies and their implication to domestication. It was found that there is big gap between policy formulation level and implementation level. Farmers are not aware of the legal provision, which they are required to know. This gap between the DFO and the farmers has been the major cause influencing the domestication in lack of knowledge on legal provision of NTFPs domestication because it was found that the knowledge of legal aspects is associated with motivation towards domestication. Ban on collection as well as export in unprocessed form, contradictory rules and existing DFOs capacity are the main factors influencing the farmers decision on adopting domestication as a viable livelihood strategy. Therefore, there is a need to re-examine these legal barriers if domestication is to be encouraged. The Capacity of the DFO should be increased in terms of providing support services like technical, extension, institutional and financial. Awareness on legal provisions is very essential. Provision of communal land could play an influencing role in terms of encouraging the poor to adopting domestication. Leaseholds forestry could be a viable option in this regard. Some extension services like Demonstration and exposure visits are strongly recommended.