Sustainable Development of Pine Nuts Business at Hudur Valley Diamer Northern Areas

Abstract

The chilghoza forest system in high pastures at Hudur valley of Diamer district, Northern Areas is a very lucrative source of income generation for the communities of the area. The population of the area is about 4600 people living in 750 house holds with 9 sub regions.

The pine nuts of the area are sold by the community both in raw and finished form. What is lacking is a proper platform to provide a sustained business. The objective of the study was to understand the prevalent practices of community based chilghoza business and find out ways to recommend as to how to boost up this business by the native communities as more revenue generating product by identifying the opportunities and suggests business development opportunities by analyzing the current situation of the business. The community members were interviewed by administering a designed and structured questionnaire to collect the information from randomly selected samples. The study identifies the issues related to the chilghoza business, for example, financial constrains, lack of awareness, lack of marketing skills, improper harvesting techniques, maalikans and non maalikans (ownership and user rights) problem and conceptual variances. The study suggests a proper setup to business and ways to develop marketing skills in the community by identifying the issues and opportunities.