Vegetables production

Seed sector in Nepal has high comparative advantage, and the Government of Nepal has also emphasized to develop and strengthen seed supply system in Nepal. However, it has been facing different types of limitations and risks at different levels of the vegetable seeds system in Nepal. Therefore, this paper analyzes overall existing vegetable seeds production environment, its marketing practice and perception of seed producers and users in Nepal.

Using simple random sampling technique, a total of 275 seed producers and seed users were selected for the study purpose from four districts. Among them, 175 seed producers were from Rukum and Kavre; 100 seed users were from Rupandehi and Palpa. In addition, 75 seed companies/agro-vets/cooperatives/traders/service providers were selected purposely from all study districts. Indexing techniques, Chi-square test and willingness to pay using direct survey method were used to analyze the data.

It was estimated that on average about 10–20% losses were observed in vegetable seeds from farm to wholesale due to poor drying, management and storage practices. The unfavorable environment immediately after harvesting and need to dry several times were ranked as first drying and storage problems, respectively. From the analysis, it was found that selection criteria for hybrid and open-pollinated were found significantly different among fresh vegetable growers. The reasons for choosing hybrids were due to their higher production, attractive fruits and more profit. The study reveals the mismatch between seed production and variety demanded by the fresh growers. Moreover, results on tendency of farmers to change preferred varieties and their willingness to pay additional price for high-quality vegetable seeds indicate the market potential for expansion of quality seed in the future.

It seems that the promotion of new post-harvest technologies to maintain dry chain throughout the vegetable seeds system that can provide higher return to the farmers would be easily accepted by the respondents. Therefore, the advantage of microclimatic diversity in hilly areas of Nepal and the seed grower’s willingness to maintain good-quality seeds can be utilized to produce huge amount of seeds for the fulfillment of national demand in the plain areas as well as export, especially in SAARC countries.

Seed sector in Nepal has high comparative advantage, and the Government of Nepal has also emphasized to develop and strengthen seed supply system in Nepal [9, 13]. Vegetable seeds are recognized as lucrative enterprise for improving the livelihood of farmers and addressing the issues of self-sufficiency, food security and economic development of remote areas [3, 17]. Vegetable seeds give 3–5 times higher income as compared to alternative cereal crops, enabling farmers to buy at least three times more food as compared to growing traditional food crops on the same land [3]. Most of the studies reported that vegetable seed production is more profitable than food grain crops [5, 10, 24]. The cropping pattern in study area in upland area is mainly dominated by maize and included other crops like legumes, vegetables, wheat and vegetable seeds. In the lowland area, the cropping pattern was mainly dominated by rice and included other crops like wheat, potato, spring maize and vegetable seeds [20, 21].

The demand for quality seed is increasing day by day, presenting new challenges to meet the consumer’s demands by taking competitive advantage in the context of international practices [22]. Major areas for producing vegetable seeds are focused in mid and high hills of Nepal. The hilly area of Nepal has microclimatic diversity to produce several kinds of vegetable seeds. Seed marketing is not yet specialized in the overall seed system. However, a few seed companies have initiated systematic marketing with proper grading, standard packaging and labeling for some vegetable seeds, but they have lacking research and development activities [15]. Marketing of quality seeds is constrained by the absence of well-established seed marketing companies and inadequate quality control services.