CIFOR evaluates its programme to domesticate non-timber products such as gnetum. The regional office of the Centre for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), is training villagers in the humid forest zones on methods of domesticating and marketing of non timber forest products. The programme was conceived against the backdrop of their irrational exploitation and subsequent scarcity. The forest containes a myriad of species of plants of economic importance to the inhabitants. CIFOR is working in partnership with national non-governmental organisations to domesticate some of the forest products. In Evodoula, precisely at Minwoho village, the main crop is gnetum, commonly known as eru or okok. Here, farmers have formed groups, mostly women to grow gnetum . It is carried out on a secondary farm land and does not entail destroying the forest. The plant is transplanted. Where more than one seedling is found they are separated and plant on the farm area.
