Twenty-five farmers, 24 from Dadeldhura and one from Bajhang, participated in the training, which was conducted under the facilitation of technicians from the Seed Quality Control Office, Lalitpur, and the Seed Laboratory, Kanchanpur.
What you should know
A three-day training has been given to farmers and traders in Dadeldhura to streamline the seed production and certification process of food crops. The training, organized by the National Agricultural Modernization Program Implementation Unit, Dadeldhura, concluded on Sunday. Farmers, agrovet operators and technicians participated in the training.
Although seeds of various food crops, including potatoes, have been produced in the district, they were sold and distributed without quality testing and legal certification in the past. “From now on, the training has been conducted with the aim of ensuring that seeds can be traded only after meeting legal and scientific standards,” said Pitambar Basnet, head of the program implementation unit and senior agricultural officer.
According to Basnet, the training clarified the necessary procedures for seed certification, the basis of quality, documents to be prepared by farmers, and sample testing methods. He said that this training is very important to make farmers clear about this as certification (tag) is mandatory for food crop seeds.
24 farmers from Dadeldhura and one from Bajhang participated in the training conducted under the facilitation of technicians from the Seed Seed Quality Control Office, Lalitpur and the Seed Seed Laboratory, Kanchanpur. All the participants have passed the examination conducted after the training.
Deepak Raj Ojha, agricultural officer of the Seed-Seed Laboratory, Kanchanpur, said that the path will be paved for the sale and distribution of potato seeds on a legal basis by certifying them. He said that since officially certified potato seeds are not available in Dadeldhura so far, farmers have a weak practice of separating 'eating potatoes' and 'seed potatoes', so now this training will directly benefit farmers.
After the training, farmers will take permission from the Agricultural Knowledge Center, and then the process of seed certification will proceed only after technical testing. It is said that certified seeds will increase quality production and will also facilitate export to other districts.
Dadeldhura is one of the leading districts in the Far West in terms of potato production. Last year, the Agricultural Knowledge Center Dadeldhura reported that potatoes worth more than Rs 710 million were produced in the district. Potatoes are cultivated in two seasons in the district. Spring potatoes are planted on 400 hectares and winter potatoes on 722 hectares of land.
