Agrotech

 As we all know Nepali agriculture is mostly rainfed agriculture. Irrigation is one of the major challenges in many places all over the country. Climate change and global warming have blamed for water scarcity for a long. However, the knowledge and understanding of natural water management could be the biggest problem for poor irrigation and drinking water in Nepal. There is no debate that Nepal is rich in natural water resources, you can find many small streams and rivers in hilly areas. Furthermore, there are many water catchment areas in hills and mountains. However, the water from these resources such as rivers and streams in catchment areas is being wasted without any use. On a seasonal basis, such as for rice transplantation season, these water resources often used, but they do not use for water collection and use for the future.  How can we manage natural water resources? A. Harvesting and collecting natural water from the catchment areas In Nepal, the wasted water from...

Nepal has mostly cereal dominated agriculture system in every agro-ecological regions. Because of the higher preference to cereals, other agricultural products systems are usually underrated   in Nepal. Floriculture is one of the underrated agriculture practice in Nepal and it is though as seasonal business only, however it has multiple economic benefits which can boost up the economic condition of growers throughout the year from many ways.    A. Fresh flowers Fresh flowers have great cultural and religious significance in Nepal. Every worship, cultural rituals, social rituals, function and funeral, it can not go without fresh flowers. In most of the fresh flower consumptions time such as Tihar, Nepal always have to import heavily from foreign country. In tihar 2018 AD, Nepal  had imported 2 million USD worth fresh flowers from neighbouring countries. Therefore, there is an significant opportunity to earn money by producing fresh flowers year round. Furthe...

According to the Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) data (2016), only 4.6 million people are food secure in Nepal, it indicates that only 15-16% of Nepalese have easy access to foods. According to DHS data  20 percent of households mildly food-insecure, 22 percent moderately food-insecure, and 10 percent severely food-insecure in Nepal.  Among the household suffering food insecurity are simultaneously suffering from malnutrition.  Even though, Nepal is agricultural country, food security is still a burning question and a challenge. Many challenges at ground level (such as labour scarcity, poor technical knowledge and traditional tools of farming)  and in policy level (such as poor infrastructures, poor policy, poor implementation of policies) are main causes behind this unfortunate situation in Nepali agriculture. Whatever the matter, however, many Nepali are still under hunger and poverty.  In addition, the geographic condition is another level of different op...

  Continued from............ Aren't we too late to understand that the subject matter of our agricultural curriculum needs to be up-to-date and should support employability and business skills? Image: Different universities and institutions teaching agriculture in Nepal 2. Course content  The agriculture studies still running with same old outdated information. You easily can found a IAAS alumni from last 10 years studied same content than today's content in subjects. Time has changed and brought significant meaningful changes in our agriculture system.  We do have new scope in our agriculture, however, we are still studying same old scope which is not highly relevant to current time . I still remember from my BSC. in agriculture where I have studied 'Nepal has low productivity for everything so we have to increase production to meet food security' as a scope for most of the subjects, hasn't this scope been changed?  It is universal scope of agriculture to meet food...

Since 1957, Nepal government has realized the importance of agriculture studies in Nepal.  The agriculture studies had been started giving general technical training. Within this 6 decades, agricultural institutes and number of students been significantly increased all over the country, unfortunately the quality of education has not significantly improved . We are still studying the same general subjects developed decades and decades ago and same outdated information, which is not really going to help us.   ६ दशक देखिको कृषि अध्ययन अहिलेको समय सम्म आइपुग्दा पनि अध्यापन गराउने संस्थानहरू र बिद्यार्थीको संख्या मात्र बढे, तर यो बाहेक शैक्षिक  गुणत्व बढ्ने गरि महत्वपुर्ण सुधार भने आएन  Technical studies have been always understood for better career future , therefore, there is alway large mass of people tend to choose technical studies for their higher education; same case applied to agricultural studies. There is a large number of people who wants to pursue hi...

  Marigold Marigolds are ornamental plants which are available with either of yellow, orange or copper-brown flowers. These plants are cultivated mainly for ornamental value worldwide. There are 129 species of marigold can find worldwide from mainly two different genera i.e. genera tagetes and genera calendula.  Genera Tagetes are from sunflower ( Asteraceae ) family which are mostly annual or sometime perennial, mostly herbaceous plants. These plants are native to America which are growing naturally from the southwestern United States into South America, but some species naturally growing around the other part of world as well.  Genera Calendula are also belongs to sunflower ( Asteraceae ) family and are commonly known as pot marigold, ruddles, common and scotch marigolds. These are probably native to southern Europe, however, the history of calendula are still unknown.  Marigold has been valued for cultural and religious significance in Nep...

  Lentils Lentils are agronomic crop belongs to family leguminosae and categorized as pulses. Lentils are widely consumed, the main consumers are South Asia.  It is annual plant about 40 cm tall and known for lens-shaped seeds. The seeds are grown in small pods which contain 2-3 seeds/pod. The major global producers of lentils are Canada and India where 50% of combined global production is dominated by these two countries.  Photo: Lentil plant with pods, Source: Indian Institute of pulse research Benefits of lentil i n Agriculture  A. Nitrogen fixation Nitrogen is important fertilizer to support plant growth. As Lentil is legume crop, it has ability to form nodules and fix biologically available nitrogen into soil. To conserve the soil in its natural state and to protect from degradation of soil from chemical fertilizer application, alternatively we can grow lentils to let them fix nitrogen in soil. The use of hazardous chemical fertilizers should be avoided for impr...