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Substandard seeds leave farmers’ land barren
DANG, JAN 03 - Farmers of Duruwa VDC have been badly hit after Crop Diversification Project (CDP), which was supposed to distribute improved seeds to raise income of poor farmers, distributed the substandard seeds of potato.
Earlier, District Agriculture Development Office (DADO) had selected Duruwa as a ‘model site’ for implementing the crop diversification project. However, most of the cultivated plots of land in the VDC remained barren, as the TPS variety of potato seeds distributed by the project did not even germinate.
The project officials had distributed about 18 quintals of seed to 36 farmers that were involved in nine different Farmers’ Groups. "However, over fifty percent of the distributed seeds turned useless," said farmers.
Fearing of poor production, few farmers bought better seeds from the market for the plantation. However, most of the farmers that could not acquire seeds have been forced to leave their land barren.
Similar incident was recorded in case of wheat seeds too. The farmers had re-sown the seeds buying from the local market after the seeds distributed by the project did not germinate on time.
The project has appointed Banke District-based Users Centre (UC) and Backward Society Education (BASE) for providing crop diversification services to the farmers. It has also hired a separate agriculture technician, field supervisor and office staff for the model site of Duruwa.
However, farmers complained that they have never been provided the technical services promised under the project implementation. Tularam Chaudhary, President of Farmers’ Main Coordination Committee (FMCC), said, "On the contrary, the farmers have been cheated by the distribution of inferior quality seeds."
Nara Bahadur Chaudhary, another farmer of Duruwa further said that although the project staff promised to supply them the pesticides for their potato farming, they did not fulfil the commitment on time. "The project distributed just a small quantity of pesticides, but at wrong time. By then farmers had already bought the pesticides and used these on personal initiatives," he said.
Farmers further expressed anger over technicians who never came back to the area. "We know, technical problems arises at times when new technology is introduced. But, project staff and technicians should have been here to discuss the problems," they said.
They further said that farmers are compelled to go to Tulasipur to request the BASE officials to send agriculture technicians in Duruwa. "However, the officials there simply do not respond," said they.
The DADO has allocated an annual budget of Rs 1.4 million for the crop diversification project run in Duruwa. However, except for the substandard seeds, farmers have not been provided services of any form.
Abdul Rahman, Chief of the office conceded that the project has failed to provide services as envisaged initially. He further said that the issue would be dealt seriously in coordination of the centre. Posted on: 2004-01-04 04:31
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