No Others Than the Farmers Have Solution on Food Deficiency (A
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FOREWORD: No Others Than The Farmers Have Solution On Food Deficiency More than 70% of the people are engaged in agriculture in Nepal, still the food production is not sufficient to feed all the people round the year. In many (A Case of Food Facility Project in districts, especially hill and mountain Sindhuli District) regions, food deficiency is persistent. Such deficiency is prevailed even in Sindhuli district and to minimize this problem in the said district the project on Food Facility (EUFF) funded by European Union through FAO in Nepal BACKGROUND: was implemented by USC Nepal. In the course of implementation of this project, several stakeholders both Sindhuli is one of the hill districts that lie in the institutional and individuals were involved and the Central Development Region of Nepal. It constitutes high combined efforts of all those stakeholders were hills as well as plain areas ranging from 305 to 2,787 collectively responsible for attaining the exciting results meters high. The plain areas lie in the river basin and the stated in the respective section of the booklet. Hence, the name of the main rivers are Kamala, Marin, Chandaha, beneficiary farmers of the project area, the center and Jirgaha, Langdi Dhanmana, Simle Arun Thakur and district level related government officials including VDC Gadauli. secretaries, representatives of political parties functional at district as well as VDC level party networks and project The total land area of the Sindhuli district is staff are duely acknowledged for their contribution in the 2,47,709 hectars of which 11,798 hectars is agricultural successful implementation of the project. European Union land and the rest is either pasture or forest or other land. along with EUFF Project executing authorities of FAO in The population of the district is 3,46,109 (as of 2001) with Nepal also are duely appreciated for entrusting USC Nepal a total of 60,648 households. Among them, 59.14 % are for the implementation of this project in Sindhuli district marginal farm households. Sindhuli is one of the food and providing funding as well as other technical supports. deficit districts of Nepal and it has very low level of important socio- economic indicators: Dr. Tika Prasad Pokharel Chairperson 1 2 Table 1: Key Socio Economic Indicators of Sindhuli 2. Introduce community development program for the District. support of the weaker section of the people Farm size 0.24 hector. irrespective of families affected by the earthquake. Marginal farm households 59. 14 % 3. Resettle the families threatened by the landslides. Irrigated land 27.36 % Food deficiency 9,910 MT. The same program also was started in Dolakha and as of 2006/07) Kavrepalanchwok districts during 1989. Literacy rate 55.0 % Child illiteracy rate 22.04 % The name of the program VDCs of all these three Drinking water supply coverage 61.77 % districts were as below: Toilet facility coverage 27.36 % Program VDCs in Program VDCs in Program VDCs in Source: District profile Sindhuli District Kavrepalanchwok Dolakha District District st Meanwhile the earthquake of 21 August, 1988 1. Ratnawati 1. Dadakharka 1. Hoksey severely hit this district including several others of Eastern and Central development regions of Nepal. This made USC 2. Mahadevdada 2. Dolakha (Rampa 2. Saping Nepal to present in this district with some interventions to Village only) help improve in the living conditions of the people. 3. Kholagaun 3. kalentey Based on the damages caused by the said earthquake 4. Pokhari and size of the vulnerable ethnic communities residing in six Village Development Committees (VDCs), then called 5. Solpa Village Panchyats, in the Eastern part of the district (see the map) were selected and a five year development 6. Khansang program with the name of "Post Earthquake Program (PEP)" was started by USC Nepal from January, 1989. The objectives of the PEP program were to: Besides reconstruction and rehabilitation, the programs in all these districts included drinking water 1. Reconstruct the school buildings and other social supply, small irrigation, functional literacy, animal health, infrastructure damaged by the earthquake. mini- kit distribution, income generation, saving and credit, environment protection, aforestation, institutional development, health education and sanitation. 3 4 After five years of its operation, the program was funded by European Union (EU) through the Food and phased out handing over to the locally developed NGOs in Agricultural Organization (FAO) in Nepal. This project had Dolakha and Kavre districts and in Sindhuli district it was covered 10 VDCs of the most remote part in the North- phased out in 2000. But as of the demand of the local West of the districts (see the map). The objective of the people and experiences as well as achievements gained project was to enhance the food security for 6,148 during this phase of the program in the said VDCs of the marginal farm households including 527 landless respective districts, the community development program, households and to mitigate the negative effect of soaring with a new name of "People’s Empowerment Program food prices in the project VDCs. (PEP)", was started in six new VDCs in the South-East (see the map) of Sindhuli district in 2000. These VDCs were: These VDCs with number of settlements and households covered by the project were as given in Table: 2 (1) Ranibas VDC (2) Nipane VDC Table 2: VDCs with No. of Settlements & Households (3) Sirthauli VDC Covered by the Project (4) Harsahi VDC S. Name Agriculture Livestock (5) Tadi VDC N. of VDCs Activities Activities (6) Dudhauli VDC No. of No. of No. of No. of Settlements Households Settlements Households In these VDCs, the total beneficiaries were about 34,000 from 6,041 households and they were mostly the 1 Netrakali 31 455 4 29 ethnic communities like Danuwar, Musahar, Tamang, 2 Santeswori 19 377 3 32 Majhi, Gurung and Maghar etc. The program included the 3 Tamajor 24 336 4 29 sustainable agriculture, food security, forestry 4 Amle 17 334 4 29 conservation, drinking water supply, sanitation, health, 5 Bhadrakali 29 654 5 56 river training, environmental protection, irrigation, saving 6 Hariharpurgadi 43 511 4 44 and credit and institutional development. The program 7 Mahendrajyadi 14 691 5 60 was implemented for eight years and it was phased out handing over to the local NGOs developed and trained 8 Pipalmadi 28 1007 8 86 during the program phase in May, 2008. 9 Bastipur 41 411 3 35 10 Kapilakot 39 1370 7 117 From February 2010, USC Nepal started new project in Sindhuli district. This project was on Food Security Total 275 6,148 48 527 named as "European Union Food Facility Project (EUFF)" 5 6 KEY ACTIVITIES OF THE PROJECT The key activities of EUFF project included training, experience sharing and input distribution. TRAINING: The purpose of the training was to make the participating farmers fully familiar with all stages of cropping system from land preparation to safe storage of the products. This means the purpose of this training was to make familiar the participants how to till the land, prepare beds, sowing seeds, carry on weeding, identify both useful and harmful insects, deal with harmful insects, use of fertilizers, provide supplementary nutrient (in case Planting of seedings of deficiency symptoms in plant), supplement the water in the crops or irrigate cropped land, harvest the crop, All these trainings were conducted using the threshing of harvested crops, dry the grain and the straw curriculum developed and made available by FAO. This under the sun and store them properly. To make fully curriculum was focused on to promote the organic farming familiar with this entire cycle, the Farmers Field Schooling and use of new technology. In organic farming, the (FFS) approach was adopted and that was carried on in 5 farmers were trained to use the organic manures as much different ways. They were (1) season long FFS:1 (16 weeks as possible and use chemical fertilizer as little as it can long), (2) season long FFS:2 ( 8 weeks long), (3) training be. They were also trained to use the preventive methods for Local Resource Persons(LRP), (4) farmers training for the control of harmful insects and use locally available through Local Resource Person(LRP) and (5) demonstration botanical pesticides to fight against such insects, in case if by Local Resource Persons( LRP). Besides these, 17 days it is occasionally out broken. Besides, the farmers were training for the facilitators, who were to be used exposed to the useful insects, ways to promote such especially for carrying on the 16 weeks long Farmers Field insects, methods of making compost and improved Schooling, were also implemented. methods of farming from land preparation to the storing of the products. They were also trained on the adoption of new technologies like System of Rice Intensification (SRI) and True Potato Seed (TPS) in the farm practices. 7 8 While getting the participation in FFS: 1 training in each place. These such understanding farmers (trainees) so selected for FFS:1 were to occupy in through these trainings a plot of appropriate farm selected from the farmer’ fields the farmers in the and provided practical as well as theoretical training of 16 project VDCs were weeks long by a facilitator assigned in each of such places. partly inquisitive and Such 16 week long training was conducted for SRI and TPS partly surprised but in 8 VDCs and the classes in such training were to take were ultimately place in each week. Similarly, the 8 weeks long FFS: 2 was receptive, though they carried on in two VDCs covering 15 places especially in were somewhat vegetables cultivation. For this 8 weeks long training, the reluctant in the local resource persons were trained locally and used.The beginning especially local resource persons were also supported by technical with the SRI and the staff of the project.