Agriculture in rural part of Nepal is traditional, which depends mainly on Indigenous Traditional Knowledge (ITK) that has been acquired by people from their ancestors. ITKs are usually followed by the people in day to day life, may it be in agriculture, animal husbandry, seed/grain conservation or storage, medicines, food, etc. It has been a part of their culture itself.Small-holder farmers possess small land holdings. The produce is used mainly for household consumption and planting for next year. Therefore, the role of indigenous storage structures is important, as most of the farm produce are stored at HH level.Due to the heavy rainfall during rainy season it becomes difficult for safe storage of the grain for a season or two. In rural parts of Nawalparasi most of the produced paddy are stored at traditional homemade structures that involves bamboo baskets(Bhakari) to gunny bags and modern bins. One of the praiseworthy actions recognized by the farmers and farming community over time is the development of innovative arrangements where the grains/seeds can be successfully stored devoid of the storage insect pest and rodents. One of the household of SHFC member (Mrs. Khimauti Soti) of Madyabindu -14, Rakachuli Lower of Nawalparasi, Nepal has been continuing the knitting of bamboo baskets as a part of Indigenous Traditional knowledge till now.There are very less other Person in her village including her husband (Mr. Thaman Sing Soti) who have the skills of knitting the bamboo baskets (Bhakari). It requires 3-4 Bamboo culms to prepare a medium sized bamboo basket. Her household has already earned Rs 8000 from selling of 4 similar bamboo baskets in the village in this time. As per her saying, they can store the paddy as well as grains successfully inside the basket for 3-4 years devoid of the storage pest, insects and rodents.The storage needs of small scale farmers have always been fulfilled by indigenous structures produced and designed by farmers with easily and economically available materials. Though the mechanized and modern mode of agriculture have been occupying gradually in the district, the ITKs are still playing an essential role in promoting the sustainable agriculture in the resource poor parts of the country.
Category: Nepal
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Duck Farming: Rozina Leads the way
Food and nutritional security is one of the major challenges that the smallholders and other marginalised communities face in the era of global health and environmental problems such as the pandemics and climate change, including biodiversity loss. Smallholder farmers are now adopting practices that reduce the impact of climate change impacts and more importantly, the impact of pandemic as the world is now witnessing. With the promotion of farm diversity using the Integrated Farming System approach, farmers like Rozina Begum in Bangladesh are emerging resilient and are ensuring their and their families’ food and nutritional security are being met. Rozina Begum and her husband, Md. Digonto are a smallholder couple. They live in Kornoher village in Paba, Rajshahi district. With just 0.13 ha of cultivable land, they were finding it difficult to meet the needs of the family that has two children.Rozina Begum, who joined the SAFBIN facilitated Smallholder Farmers’ Collective in her village, was eager to do something to contribute to the family income. She decided to diversify her small farm by adding duck farming and vegetable cultivation in her homestead. The programme supported her with 65 ducklings to help her start her duck farm. Now all the ducks have started laying eggs. She collects 25-30 eggs daily from her farm. While eggs and meat are now being consumed regularly in her family, they are also able to sell them locally as well. She has sold around 400 eggs till now and earned 4,000 BDT. Now they are selling ducks to the local community and have already sold 55 ducks and earned 13,750 BDT while adding 45 new born ducklings to her own farm. With the nutrition garden, Rozina cultivated different types of vegetables year-round. She has sold 751 Kg vegetables and earned 15,030 BDT.From the time Rozina got involved with the programme, she has been able to work through to see palpable changes in her life. She now leads the way to demonstrate to her fellow farmers how farm diversification helps to emerge resilient and become self-reliant.
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Mushroom Enterprise-A collective effort towards Climate change and farm diversity
Rainfall and temperature variability are becoming more profound in South Asia. Smallholders relying on rainfed agriculture are particularly affected and have to adapt their farming systems accordingly.In order to adapt, SAFBIN smallholder are adopting more sustainable adaptation approaches that protect them from the negative impacts while being cost-effective and widely applicable.In Nepal, mushrooms are popular in local diets, commonly foraged in the forest during the rainy season. Cultivated mushrooms are now also being preferred among the households because of being affordable and nutritious source of fiber, minerals and vitamins. They’re increasingly being adopted by farmers due to their quick return on investment and ability to grow in small spaces.Farmers in Surkhet district of Nepal, used to do mushroom cultivation on a very small scale a few years back. They have never thought of this as a good alternative for food and nutrition security as well as an income generating source.Though the farmers had some knowledge about household mushroom cultivation they have never incorporated this as an important component in their farming system. This is because of less technical knowledge and unavailability of spore (seed). They used to consume only wild edible mushrooms in the jungles available during the monsoon season. In order to fulfill this gap, Caritas SAFBIN provided farmers 2 days of practical training in mushroom production and also provided the spores.After receiving the training, 208 farmers from different locations started mushroom cultivation in their houses individually. After the first attempt, they were very excited to see the production. In an average each farmer produced around 12 kg of mushroom which they consumed in their household, shared with the neighbors and sold the surplus production in the local markets nearby.After one-two production cycles, they scaled up the production and started to sell the production collectively in the bigger markets and district headquarter. Later they realized that per unit production cost could be reduced by collectivizing the equipment and labor. Thus they decided to combine their resources and go for collective mushroom production on a commercial scale. Currently, three smallholder farmers groups are doing collective mushroom production. SAFBIN has supported seed money of Rs 25,000 (200 Euro) for each of these 3 groups to promote small and medium enterprise on commercial mushroom farming.At present, each group makes an income of Rs. 30,000-40,000 (200 – 350 Euro) per season from the investment of NRS 8000- 10000 (60-80 Euro). It is expected that the group will take forward this in a bigger scale as an enterprise even after SAFBIN project phases out.Mushroom practice can easily be adopted by small-scale farmers to help them diversify incomes, especially when climate variabilities may challenge conventional farming, and reduce their vulnerability to adverse weather.
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Small irrigation schemes brings back big hopes for smallholder farmers
“Despite of having big opportunity to cultivate additional crops in winter, we had to leave most of our land fallow because of no irrigation facilities in this area.” said Ms. Geeta Tharu, when SAFBIN visited her field in Beluwa of Bardia distrct. This was not only her and her community’s story but there were more similar stories from the smallholder farmers from Surkhet and Nawalparasi districts. Other farmers like Ms. Tara from Surkhet and Mr. Tek Bahadur Thal from Nawalarasi had the same to say. They also had to keep their land fallow for more than 6 months in a year because of the same reason.Based on the demand of the farmers to have better access to water for irrigation, SAFBIN team initiated a dialogue with the local government and farmers to have collaborative irrigation schemes in the different project locations. The local government and the farmer’s communities were very excited with the idea. In less than five months of period, SAFBIN, in coordination and collaboration with the rural/ municipalities and local smallholder farmers, was able to restore and rebuild four irrigation canals from different districts. This has not only benefited the smallholder farmers affiliated with SAFBIN program but also has brought hopes for many other farmers in the locations. More than 380 farmers now have a plan to cultivate at least two additional crops in almost 150 hectare of land this winter which would have otherwise remained fallow. Mr. Bishnu Prasad Acharya, Ward Chairperson of Rajahar, Nawaplarasi, told that the municipality is very happy to work together with Caritas to bring back the smiles of the smallholder farmers.SAFBIN will continue to work in coordination and collaboration with the local government, farmers and other local stakeholders to improve the livelihood and increase income of the smallholder farmers.