The research team surveyed 116 households, about 10% of the 1,158 households in the study area, selected by simple random sampling at a 95% confidence level with a 5% error limit, and supplemented the survey with six key informant interviews that included the Division Forest Officer, an Assistant Forest Officer, the president of a Community Forest User Group, local leaders, and traders. Structured and semi-structured questionnaires captured both quantitative and qualitative data, which the authors analyzed primarily in MS-Excel, presenting results as tables, charts, and narrative description. The sample was demographically skewed, with 74% male and 26% female respondents, and most participants aged between 31 and 50.

The headline finding is stark. Twenty years ago, roughly 85% of the community processed and sold Chiuri products; today, only about 36% do, and 64% of respondents said they no longer sell Chiuri goods at all. Among those still engaged, 15% sell seeds, 10% sell butter, 7% sell oilcake, and just 4% sell honey. Chiuri butter, once the community’s primary source of income, has been displaced in the household economy by honey from modern beekeeping, which now accounts for an average of NRs. 104,400 per producing household, or about 91% of product-wise earnings, compared with NRs. 8,180 from butter, NRs. 2,200 from seeds, and NRs. 665 from oilcake.

The technical profile of the tree explains both its past value and its present vulnerability. Chiuri thrives at elevations of 300 to 1,500 meters across the sub-Himalayan range, and Nepal hosts an estimated 5 million fruiting trees across roughly 50 districts. Its seeds yield a rich butter with commercial applications in chocolate, candles, margarine, soap, and cooking oil, and documented medicinal use against rheumatism. Flowers feed nectar-foraging bees and can be processed into juice and candied sugar; leaves serve as fodder and disposable plates; latex produces a traditional sticky preparation called liso used against insects, mice, and bats; and the oilcake byproduct doubles as fertilizer and as a fish-sticking agent in rivers and ponds.

Yet the survey’s comparative tables show nearly every one of these uses eroding. Chiuri butter, traditionally used year-round in vegetables and bread, for lighting lamps, as a face cream for cracked skin, and on burns, is now only occasionally used in cooking and has been replaced by packaged vegetable oil and commercial candles. Oilcake, once exchanged for rice in equal measure and applied to fields, competes with NPK fertilizer. Flower juice, formerly an energy drink and cloth-washing agent, is now limited almost entirely to bee forage. Leaf plates, once standard at religious events and field lunches, are gradually giving way to plastic, and liso has been abandoned altogether in favor of commercial poisons.

The cultural erosion is equally measurable. Chiuri plants were traditionally given as dowry to Chepang daughters, with mothers-in-law providing honey, oil, and butter to married daughters. Of 96 respondents, 79 households acknowledged the dowry system’s past presence, but 84 now report its loss, with only 12 saying it continues. The traditional Chepuwa, or Khalang, the wooden oil-extraction tool, has fared worse: 51 households once reported owning one, but today 85 report its loss and only 11 retain the implement. The authors link this obsolescence directly to declining butter production, since traditional extraction methods are low-yielding and increasingly unfamiliar to younger generations.

Market dynamics compound the decline. Transactions now concentrate in Lothar Bazaar, followed by Bhandara and local village markets, with butter, honey, and seeds the principal commodities. The authors identify a discriminatory pricing policy as the primary market challenge: no equitable mechanism exists for collectors and farmers selling Chiuri seeds and flowers, and limited domestic consumption further weakens pricing power. Households engaged in seed collection earn an average of only about USD 41 per year, far below current market value, and average annual income from Chiuri ghee in the study settlements of Thakaltar and Araulitar hovers around NRs. 8,000.

The study situates these losses within broader ecological and social pressures. A militarized conservation model restricts community access to protected areas and forest resources, so many Chiuri fruits are left to rot on trees because collection is dangerous and processing capacity is lacking. Seed propagation is slow, discouraging cultivation as a primary business. The shift to modern apiculture, while profitable, raises concerns that introduced exotic honeybees such as Apis mellifera may displace the native Apis cerana and threaten native and wild pollinators. The growing influence of Christianity and the outmigration of Chepang youth to urban areas further weaken the nature-based customs that once preserved Chiuri traditions.

The untapped potential remains enormous. National estimates cited in the study put total Chiuri butter production potential at 37,245 tons, worth more than 5 billion Nepalese rupees, with honey potential around 17,285 metric tons. Chiuri butter could substitute for imported palm oil from Malaysia and Indonesia and reach niche cosmetics markets, including German buyers, if issues of volume and quality consistency are resolved. Yet awareness gaps persist: only 5% of respondents produce honey, while 75% know nothing about producing or marketing it, and traders have not fully tapped the Chiuri market because producers, processors, and traders lack information about its potential.

The authors conclude that adopting cost-effective treatment technology to replace the obsolete Chepuwa is imperative for sustainable Chiuri production, alongside entrepreneurship and marketing training, exploration of export opportunities, urban promotion, and ecological research into the root causes of declining utilization. Existing cooperatives, they argue, could support local agribusiness such as beekeeping, improve honey quality, and secure better prices. For a community once so intertwined with a single tree that it planted them for its daughters’ futures, the survey is both a warning and a roadmap: the Chepang relationship with Chiuri is not extinct, but it is now hanging by the same threads of honey, memory, and market reform that could yet restore it.

Subject of Research: Ethnobotany

Article Title: An assessment of Diploknema butyracea (Roxb.) H. J. Lam (Chiuri) utilization in Chepang community Chitwan district, Nepal

Article References: Poudel, B., Ghimire, S., & Gautam, N. (2024). An assessment of Diploknema butyracea (Roxb.) H. J. Lam (Chiuri) utilization in Chepang community Chitwan district, Nepal. Innovations in Agriculture, 7, 1-9. https://doi.org/10.3897/ia.2024.124320

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.3897/ia.2024.124320

Keywords: Chiuri, Diploknema butyracea, Chepang, Nepal, ethnobotany, non-timber forest products, beekeeping, honey, assessment, Diploknema, butyracea, Roxb