After successful implementation of their concept of ‘goat village’ in three places of Uttarakhand, the Green People and the Youth Foundation, the organisations, which had mooted the concept, are now planning to operate series of such villages in the State. With an objective of ushering in reverse migration in the hills of Uttarakhand, the Goat Village concept focuses on tourism, cattle rearing and mountain farming to increase the income of the villagers.
The Director of Green People, Rupesh Rai told mediapersons here on Sunday that the organisation first of all started the Goat Village at Johnpur in Tehri Garhwal. Here, local people were associated with employment, organic agriculture and with goat farming. later the goat villages were developed in Kanatal and Raithal. Rai said till now, 2,500 kilograms of rural produce is purchased from 500 families of these villages.
He said the organisation has now targeted to reach out up to 10,000 farmers in the State from which kidney bean, finger millet, amaranthus (Cholai) and Jhingora would be purchased.
“The idea of Goat Village was to restore lost village traditions, ways of living and reverse the migration Youth Foundation played our soul mate companion and Nagtibba became our first pit stop, followed by Dayara Bugyal and Kanatal.
We can now say with a pride that a trek destination having foot fall of some odd 1500 tourists before start of our project is now teeming with more than 12000 tourists in a year benefitting the rural economies of area of our operations.
We are planning to expand in remaining 11 districts of Uttarakhand to create a model show case catalogue or laboratory of local culture, heritage, cuisine, agriculture, horticulture, animal husbandry and environment,’’ he said.
In its expansion plan the organisation is targeting enterprising personalities having a traditional village house with three or more rooms and some cultivable land.
For being part of the concept one can call on the numbers 7088208855/8476033336 /9818889005 or mail on thegoatvillages@gmail.com or log on to grppl.in/thegoatvillages.com/bakrichhap.com.