He said that the Basante Maize Knowledge Center has been encouraging farmers cultivating three crops by providing seeds and technical support under the Crop Intensification Program targeting irrigated areas in Banke district.
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With the expansion of irrigation facilities, farmers in Banke have started cultivating three crops a year. The compulsion to cultivate with rainwater has now been removed. In the past, farmers who used to keep their fields fallow due to lack of irrigation after cultivating rainfed rice are now cultivating potatoes or mustard after cultivating rice and immediately following it with spring maize, thus cultivating three crops a year, said Santosh Pathak, Information Officer and Senior Horticulture Development Officer at the Agricultural Knowledge Center.
‘With the establishment of irrigation facilities, farmers are increasingly attracted to three-crop farming. Farmers are earning cash from potatoes and spring maize,’ he said. ‘After the rainfed rice harvest, wheat farmers are limited to two crops, while mustard or potato farmers have also started cultivating maize instead of wheat.’
Since mustard or potato farming is ready faster than wheat farming, maize farming can be done immediately after that, the Agricultural Knowledge Center has been encouraging three-crop farming, said Officer Pathak. He said that the Knowledge Center has been encouraging farmers cultivating three crops in spring maize farming by providing seeds and technical support under the Crop Intensification Program for Irrigated Areas in Banke district.
In Banke, 33,780 hectares of rainfed rice, 20,895 hectares of wheat, 3,500 hectares of spring maize, 3,250 hectares of potatoes, 6,530 hectares of mustard, and 135 hectares of winter maize are being cultivated. After the Sikta Irrigation Project released water into the canal, it has become easier for farmers to cultivate. Pathak said that the Agricultural Knowledge Center has distributed borings to cooperatives and farmer groups at a 50 percent subsidy for irrigation in areas where Sikta irrigation water is not available.
Raju Acharya, Director of Sikta Irrigation Project, informed that Sikta has been releasing water into the canal during the cultivation period to prevent farmers from experiencing a shortage of irrigation.
According to him, the project, which was implemented by constructing a dam on the Rapti River in Agaiya, Rapti Sonari Rural Municipality-2, has aimed to irrigate 42,766 hectares of land in the district, and by the end of Chaitra in the fiscal year 2082/83, it has made an effort to spread happiness on the faces of farmers by providing direct irrigation facilities to 24,000 hectares of land.
If regular irrigation facilities are provided, farmers in Banke will be able to cultivate three crops and get good yields, which will help in economic prosperity, said Krishna Bikram KC, President of All Nepal Farmers Federation, Banke.
