Biotechnology and Development Monitor, No. 42, p. 15-17.

Strengthening the Farmers’ Seed System in Nepal
by
Krishna Dev Joshi

Keywords:	Nepal; Seed; Participatory approaches.
Correct citation:	Dev Joshi, K. (2000), "Strengthening the Farmers’ Seed System in Nepal." Biotechnology and Development Monitor, No. 42, p. 15-17.

Nepal is a small but extraordinarily diverse country with a huge range of agroecological conditions and socioeconomic and cultural settings. This diversity demands a wide range of crop varieties but the formal seed system fails to respond. As a result, there is a growing number of initiatives in participatory crop improvement (PCI) in Nepal. Such alternatives emphasize support to the farmers’ seed system but also highlight how both systems can complement each other.

Nepal is predominantly an agricultural country, with 80 per cent of its population engaged in farming. Because of the rapid increase in population, land holdings are fragmented and scattered. The majority of the farmers are resource poor. Nearly 85 per cent of Nepalese farmers own less than two hectares of land, and almost 63 per cent of the farmers do not have economically viable land holdings.

Private sector involvement in agricultural research is very weak or almost non-existent. On the other hand, public sector involvement in seed is not very old in Nepal. During the early seventies, the Agriculture Inputs Corporation (AIC) was entrusted to deal with the production and distribution of seed as well as fertilizers. Following the liberalization policy and also due to increasing donor pressure, the Nepalese government has set up a task force to separate AIC seed and fertilizer business into two separate companies. The process is likely to be completed early next year. This could mean the end of direct government involvement in the transaction of seed in Nepal but the government’s policy role remains important for the seed systems.

Public sector crop breeding research in Nepal is inefficient considering the low numbers of varieties released, the varietal replacement rate and the adoption rates of modern varieties (MVs). For example, Nepal’s Variety Registration and Release Committee (VRRC) has released only 45 rice varieties since 1997. This number is very small considering that over 2000 rice landraces were grown in Nepal before the introduction of MVs. Farmers in the hills and mountain regions mostly grow landraces, while in the plain areas of the Terai, an extension of the Indo-Gangetic plains in the southern belt of Nepal, a few widely adapted crop varieties are prevalent, some of which have been used for 25 to 35 years. Seed certification is effective only in cereal crops and there is no regulation of plant variety protection in Nepal because there is very limited seed trade outside the country and the private sector is not involved in breeding.

The formal seed sector in Nepal only contributes to less than 5 per cent of seed requirements in major food crops while the rest is met through the informal seed system. In the farmers’ or informal seed system, the selection, production, storage and exchange of seed are integrated within the agronomic and sociocultural practices of farming communities. This is the most prevalent system in Nepal. It utilizes and manages landraces with better information on production environment and user needs and preferences, compared to formal seed systems.

To enhance farmers’ seed systems, constraints need to be identified and a supportive policy environment needs to be defined. There is also a need for alternative variety development, verification and popularization strategies. Based on discussions with several farmers’ groups and other local organizations in different parts of the country, the following issues were raised to support the farmers’ seed system.

Limited choice of cultivar

The level of farmer participation in crop variety development and verification is low. Researchers take all of the responsibility for breeding varieties and verifying their performance. Hence, only a few widely adapted ‘best’ varieties are finally developed and disseminated as a blanket recommendation in response to the varied needs of farmers. Consequently, only a few varieties developed through conventional systems are adopted by the farmers. In a study commissioned by the British Overseas Development Institute (ODI), it was revealed that the Nepalese governmental AIC, the District Agriculture Development Offices (DADO) and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) merely distribute seed of new varieties without providing opportunity for farmers to choose. Another finding was that there is no mechanism to inform farmers of variety release processes or to provide a list of recently released crop varieties. This means that farmers have no way of knowing what varieties are actually available. Hence, they depend on other organizations to choose the new seeds.

Access to source seed

The supply problem of source seed as planting materials or for plant breeding has been reported by several studies. Aside from the slow production and inadequate supply, distribution mechanisms are even more problematic. The stations of Nepal Agriculture Research Council (NARC) are the sole organizations for production and distribution of source seed in the country. The main responsibility for further multiplying and distributing the seed is entrusted to AIC, with its network of district headquarters. Consequently, AIC gets the first priority in terms of acquiring source seed from NARC stations, followed by DADOs and other organized sectors. However, these organizations do not consult farmers. There is no mechanism to systematically inject source seed of modern varieties into the farmers’ seed system. Grassroots organizations find it very inconvenient to acquire source seed from NARC stations, perhaps due to inefficient bureaucracy or physical distance. Despite economic liberalization and changes in government policy in 1990 to encourage private sector and farmers’ groups in the seed business, the government machinery has yet to reform itself and address the changing policies.

Seed demand and supply

Studies conducted with farmers’ groups, private companies and government agencies in different parts of Nepal looking at food crops, vegetables and forage crops demonstrated that while demand for MVs is medium to high, the formal sector has only a very limited supply. Despite the government’s lack of capital for seed research, development and production, it still heavily subsidizes its agencies and this results in complacency and poor performance. All of these situations are responsible for low replacement rates of improved varieties per annum: less than one per cent for rice and maize, and only three per cent for wheat. These rates are even lower in remote and mountainous regions. The short supply of seeds and planting materials is not only due to low production and procurement of planting materials; transport and market price are also crucial. Commercial production and distribution of a large volume of seed in the difficult terrain of the hills and mountains is problematic. Seed recovery from the producers is generally quite low due to food deficiency in most parts of the hill and mountain districts. Transportation of bulk seed supplies from the Terai is expensive and often unaffordable for resource-poor farmers.

Seed quality control and marketing

The lack of influence over seed quality control and marketing is a major concern for most farmers. Generally, MVs are supported by seed certification schemes. However, local-level seed production usually includes farmers’ preferred varieties, which may include both landraces and MVs. Seed produced at local level does not formally qualify for certification. This lack of an option for certification thus becomes a disadvantage for farmer-produced seed in a competitive market. To serve the farmers of Nepal, the legislation for quality control should be flexible, to allow a wide range of private sector organizations, NGOs and farmers’ groups to join and complement the formal seed systems. This could allow production and sales relationships to develop between the producers and consumers of seed, particularly among farmers who are both producers and users. Moreover, it would also encourage cooperation between the formal and informal sectors.

Recently, the National Seed Board (NBS) has started the introduction of flexible certification schemes. For instance, truthful labelling is an official policy but this is less known to farmers and grassroots organizations and is yet to be practised. NBS is also considering the enforcement of a Quality Declared Seed System, a concept developed by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). This system places a lot of the responsibility for seed quality control with the seed producers. For example, while the seed quality control agency (SQCA) inspects about 10 per cent of all seed, the producer is responsible for maintaining the quality of the remaining 90 per cent. The driving element behind this system is a quality-driven seed business. Once the system is legally enforced and practised, seed production and marketing at local level is expected to become more viable. Issues centring on technicalities of seed production such as isolation distances, pollination control, and seed conditioning operations such as seed curing are equally important. However, farmers’ organizations consider these to be manageable. In the villages, most of the farmers are aware of production maximization techniques using their local knowledge and methods. Operations such as threshing, drying, cleaning and grading (e.g. based on seed size) have been widely practised.

Examples of Participatory Crop Improvement in Nepal

A seed distribution programme covering five varieties of Chaite rice involving 1803 farmers was conducted in 20 villages in the low hill areas of Western Nepal. External intervention was limited to the distribution of new seeds. After two years, the varietal choice had increased in all locations. In 80 per cent of the surveyed area, at least two new varieties were adopted where only one variety, CH45, was grown before. Farmer-to-farmer exchange played the main role in disseminating the seed. The major spread was through food surplus category farmers and the main recipients were neighbours and relatives, but also strangers. In this approach farmers benefited from new genetic material five to six years in advance of introduction via formal systems, and with minimal effort.

A participatory variety selection (PVS) in high potential production systems (HPPSs) was conducted in Chitwan and Nawalparasi. Before the intervention, CH45 was the leading variety of Chaite rice. Following the PVS on Chaite rice, at least three to four new varieties were selected and adopted by the farmers. This research showed that different clusters of farmers preferred different varieties. The rice variety Kalinga III was adapted to environments with moderate soil fertility and limited access to irrigation, the NDR97 variety was suitable for moderate fertility and irrigated conditions, and Radha32 grew under optimum conditions. Differences in adoption were mainly due to differences in the physical environment including crop management. This also negates the common notion that one or two varieties are sufficient for HPPS areas.

Seed multiplication and farmer-to-farmer exchange were documented within participatory crop improvement (PCI) project villages, using NDR97 and Kalinga III rice varieties. About 4 kg of Chaite rice seed was given to four farmers. From that 14,553 kg rice seed was produced within one year and 43 other farmers had easy access to new Chaite rice varieties without any bureaucratic hassles. All these cases were the result of farmers’ initiatives and had no outside intervention.

Participatory landrace selection (PLS) of the upland rice Ghaiya increased the choice of cultivar in marginal environments. Following collection of germplasm from neighbouring villages and preliminary evaluation, farmers from Gorkha and Lamjung districts were offered five landraces by Local Initiatives for Biodiversity, Research and Development (LI-BIRD). Farmers preferred the ‘new’ landraces to their existing ones. A study in 1999 showed that starting with a limited quantity of Ghaiya seed, seed saving and further multiplication were greatly accelerated and within two years the ‘new’ landraces had reached a large number of users through farmer-to-farmer exchange.

Alternative varietal development and dissemination

The situation of seed systems in Nepal is similar to many countries. Worldwide there is an increasing recognition of the need for alternative approaches to variety development and dissemination that is more responsive to the demands of the majority of farmers. These participatory approaches have been applied to marginal areas and more recently to high potential production systems (HPPSs). These usually involve favourable environments and infrastructures, with very few production constraints. The farmers in HPPSs may benefit from more participation in the breeding process, especially from widening their range of cultivar choice, and from faster dissemination of products from breeding programmes. Many of the environments that appear to have lost a lot of diversity may particularly benefit from the reintroduction of wider diversity. For instance, more cultivars of diverse origins could provide greater stability under pest and disease attack.

From the experience of informal research and development in Nepal (see box), it is evident that inexpensive participatory approaches can significantly increase overall yields even in HPPSs since, within each niche, better-adapted varieties can be cultivated. If these approaches were widely adopted in HPPSs in developing countries, this could hold great potential for increasing the food supply since these systems produce most of the grain. Moreover, study on PCI approaches has reported them to be 43 per cent more cost-effective than formal systems. Their strength lies in blending farmers’ indigenous knowledge of crop production with new varietal innovations. Farmers have intricate knowledge of local agroecology and the management of crop production, while recent advances in crop breeding can overcome many of the biotic and abiotic stresses. In this context, PCI strategies need to be institutionalized within formal systems.

Changes in the formal system

The public sector can contribute significantly to strengthening farmers’ initiatives by supporting the following aspects:

Increasing the choice of crop varieties: Even with the use of participatory approaches the public sector would remain important as a major partner in the business. Increasing farmers’ participation in variety development and verification would help address the need for increasing varietal choices. This could significantly cut research costs, improve varietal diversification, and enhance local seed systems and adoption rates.
Regular supply of quality source seed: New seed sources of the varieties preferred by farmers need to be adequately produced and distributed. The function of production and distribution of source seed should be decentralized to break the government’s monopoly. The private sector and farmers’ groups should be encouraged to take major roles. Nevertheless, the role of the public sector in this context becomes very important both in providing source seed and in overseeing the quality of seed.
Market networking: Marketing of seed is an important concern for farmers. The public sector can act as a mediator in bringing together the farmers’ seed producer groups and the seed distributors, such as private companies, merchants, local vendors and NGOs. Marketing issues can be better dealt with by establishing demand forecasting systems, whereby demand for any crop variety is known and is passed on to the producers, and the clients are aware of the sources of different seed. Making use of information networks is also important. In most communities there are informal networks or relations for the flow of information and technologies.

Despite its weakness, the formal sector could be reformed to help in strengthening the informal sector, particularly in developing farmer-preferred crop varieties for diverse environments, increasing the choice of varieties, and ensuring the quality of seed. Use of participatory approaches and partnerships between formal sector and grassroots organizations could strengthen both seed systems in Nepal.
Krishna Dev Joshi
Local Initiatives for Biodiversity, Research and Development (LI-BIRD). PO Box 324, Popkhara, Nepal.
Phone (+99) 7 61 26834; Fax (+99) 7 61 26834; E-mail leebird@mos.com.np or kdjoshi1@hotmail.com
Sources:
Joshi, K. D. (1999), Small-scale Seed Production and Distribution in Nepal. Research report for Overseas Development Institute. London, United Kingdom: ODI.

Joshi, K. D., Rana, R. B., et al. (1998), "The Success of Participatory Varietal Selection for Chaite Rice in High Potential Production Systems in the Nepal Terai". In: Punia, M.S. et al. (eds). International Conference on Food Security and Crop Science. Hisar, India: Haryana Agricultural University, Abst. No. 10.7, p. 302.

Joshi, K. D., Subedi, M., et al. (1997), "Enhancing On-Farm Varietal Diversity through Participatory Varietal Selection: A case study for Chaite rice in Nepal". Experimental Agriculture, No. 33, pp. 335-344.

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