26/05/2020

Nepal: SAFBIN in Media Coverage

In this latest situation of Lockdown due COVID-19 Pandemic, the import of vegetables has been halted completely in Surkhet district due to complete sealing of the district. In this circumstance, the district is trying to be self-reliant in vegetables. Following the directives of Nationwide Lockdown from Government of Nepal, farmers from Parseni and Latikoili are not only doing vegetable cultivation in kitchen garden at subsistence level but now at commercial level also and are now ever busy working in the vegetable field at this time!

While making transact walk in the village, some farmers were seen busy in maize sowing and some were busy in the vegetable field. The farmers see a huge opportunity of selling the vegetables in the market at good prices. However, marketing vegetables is still an issue in the lockdown. Mostly the problem of transportation and the small volume of the product are the issues they are facing and the farmers collectives are already discussing on the solutions like coordinating with the local agriculture cooperatives for the collection of their products at a place and access the marketing of their products to Birendranagar once a week.

As per the farmers of Latikoili, the input support along with capacity building on vegetable cultivation, nursery raising, importance and process of compost manure was supported by Caritas Nepal under SAFBIN program. In addition to SAFBIN, Ministry of Land Management Agriculture and Cooperative, Small Farmers Cooperative of Karnali Province has been supporting them. The farmers of Latikoili and Parseni have recently been coordinating and communicating with Provincial government and related stakeholders for the easy and effective support in marketing of Agriculture commodities from their area.