Seed production: a progressive achievement of rural farmers
Bajura-Bajura is a potential district in terms of natural resources and climatic variability with altitudes scaling up from 762m to 7036m. Despite the immense potentialities, the development indicators are not visible in the district. Like in other hilly areas of the district, the farmers of Baduwalwada, a village located nearby Martadi, the district headquarters, are also facing hardships because of lack of exposure on new technologies, limited extension works in agriculture sector and poor access on improved seed.
Madan Raj Pandit, 45, SLC graduate, resident of Martadi-9, was wandering in search for opportunity to improve livelihood of his own and that of his friends. After failing to find an opportunity of employment in the native place, his friends left for labor market in India.
However, Madan decided to stay back home and decided to work for change. He started commercial farming of crops in the year 1995. He cultivated his 1 ha of land in order to raise traditional varieties of cereal crops like wheat, maize and paddy. Pandit, like other farmers of the area, was not acquainted on difference between seed and grain. The farmers used to store grains in same bins and sags which were used for feeding and seeding purpose. In April 2013, Agriculture and Food Security Project (AFSP) was launched in 10 VDCs of Bajura district, including Martadi. 25 enthusiastic farmers participated in a season long Farmers Field School (FFS) conducted with the technical assistance of FAO on wheat crop. Pandit was one of the participants of FFS that kicked off on 8th Oct 2015. FFS, as an extension tool for technology dissemination, contributed for change on crop production. FFS sessions provided technical knowhow and pragmatic knowledge on improved seed and its importance to increase the production and productivity. The curiosity of participants to learn about the principle and techniques of seed production were covered in the FFS sessions, which were facilitated by the technical officer of the project and the government officers from District Agriculture Development Office (DADO).
According to Daya Ram Sapkota, District Technical Officer-Agriculture (Bajura) at FAO-TA to AFSP, AFSP/DADO has supported breeder and foundation seed of wheat (Var; WK 1204) to Pandit and his group in the year 2016 to promote the seed security for food security campaign. Pandit and his group were excited to have good yield of wheat from improved variety i.e. 4.5 mt/ha. The yield from improved variety of seed was almost double in comparison to local variety (Muddule). The yield from the local variety used to be merely 2.5 mt/ha.
K D Kushuwaha, Extension Officer of DADO, said, "DADO has provided the promotional business to Pandit and group supporting them to institutionalize the community based seed production in the district. In 2017, Pandit sold 2MT of wheat seed at the cost of NPR 120,000 to DADO. Now, farmers of Baduwalbada, are happily expanding the seed production in terms of area of 2.3 ha to scale up their seed business in paddy crop as well."
Encouraged by the good yield, Pandit said that his group have planned to expand their seed business to more Municipalities and village municipalities of districts. They have planned to unite all individual seed producers in order to form seed producing cooperative.
With much confidence, Pandit, who has experienced the sweetness of the success, further said, “We will develop Baduwalbada village as a seed resource center of cereal crops.”