Study on supply chain of construction materials- study carried out in the post earthquake reconstruction in Nepal

http://infohub.practicalaction.org/oknowledge/handle/11283/620299
 

Fertile ground: harnessing the market to reverse soil degradation in South Asia

Seth Cook, Chris Henderson, Menila Kharel, Afsari Begum, Abdur Rob, Sujan Piya
Briefing

Soils are the foundation of all terrestrial life on the planet and are essential for agricultural production. Yet intensive agriculture involving heavy inputs of chemical fertilisers is degrading soils across South Asia and many other parts of the world, threatening food security. Soil fertility and structure can be vastly improved through greater applications of compost, manure and other organic fertilisers. However, the shift away from diverse farming systems means that organic matter is now in short supply on many farms. There is a need to develop value chains to enable organic fertilisers and composts to supply much needed organic matter to depleted soils. Lessons from multi-stakeholder initiatives in Bangladesh and Nepal illustrate the potential for scaling up such value chains to foster more inclusive and sustainable agriculture.

http://pubs.iied.org/pdfs/17394IIED.pdf
 

strategy to establish agrovet busines service in rural mountain areas

Establishment of agro-vet opens new doors

Sujan Piya
April 1st, 2015

Bhakta Bahadhur Saud, a resident of Kuldevmandu VDC of Bajura District, earned his living by selling agricultural inputs to local farmers which he bought from the agro-vets of other districts. He was carrying out this work in a very basic way but changed his working modality after participating in a training workshop. He was one of the participants of the market mapping workshop organised by Rural Access Programme (RAP) – 3 in the Bajura District. During the workshop, he was identified as a potential market player who could do input business formally and provide services to many farmers in the community.
Rural Access Programme (RAP) – 3 is a four years project being implemented by Practical Action through IMC Worldwide with the financial support from DFID in 22 Village Development Committees (VDCs) Doti, Achham, Bajura and Humla Districts.

In all these districts, market system analysis was carried out through participatory market mapping (PMM). In the working VDCs of Bajura District, it was found that, there were no agro-vets accessible to the local community. Farmers had to purchase inputs either from adjoining districts or from the regional market at Dhangadhi which was arduous requiring a long day travel. Thus, there existed limited opportunity for farmers to go beyond the subsistence farming.

Further analysis indicated that small and fragmented markets in rural areas with higher transaction costs for carrying out business is a root cause of the poor functioning of input markets in rural areas.

RAP project initiated a deal to motivate Bhakta Bahadhur Saud to establish himself as an agro-vet. He participated in entrepreneurship training and pesticide training which is a pre-requisite for getting license to sell pesticides. He also developed a business plan after being a part of the training. As the initial market size was small enough to discourage any potential entrepreneurs to start a business, the project facilitated him to engage in multiple businesses like poultry hatchery and vegetable collection along with his agro-vet business to generate enough income. A linkage between with regional level agro-vet and input suppliers was also developed.

Bhakta Bahadur established himself as an agro-vet at Bamka Bazar of Kuldevmandu VDC of Bajura, which is now functioning as a major agro-vet service in the district. This agro-vet is currently serving about 6,500 households of seven VDCs of the district. Daily sales exceed NPR 4,000 on an average. Veterinary service is another major service provided by the agro-vet as Bhakta Bahadur is also a trained Vet JTA.

On top of all these, Bhakta Bahadur has currently initiated poultry business to sell live chicks not only in the corridor VDCs but also beyond them. After diversifying his business, he has started making transactions of NPR 8,000 (£27) per day. He is planning to integrate collection and marketing of vegetables and other agriculture produce in near future.
As a result of the establishment of agro-vet and barefoot services, local communities now have easy, affordable and timely access to input services and micro-irrigation equipment. There are number of farmers who have up-scaled their farming from subsistence to commercial in a short time. The services provided by Bhakta Bahadur not only help him to increase his own income but also help other farmers to gain access to necessary services.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 1st, 2015 at 5:51 am and is filed under Food and agriculture, Markets, Nepal, Technology Justice. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Participatory Market System Development (PMSD) Training

Practical Action Consulting (PAC) is organizing international training on participatory market system development (PMSD) from 16-19 March 2015.
To download registration and for further information


https://practicalaction.org/consulting-pmsd-training


PMSD is based on three basic principles: participation, systemic thinking/planning and facilitation and has been developed and improved over the last decade by Practical Action's markets practitioners in Latin America, Africa and South Asia. The technical training assisted microenterprise development practitioners, from agencies as varied as CARE, World Vision International and fhi360, to gain a greater understanding of Practical Action’s approach to inclusive market development.  The training focused on how to design and facilitate preliminary and participatory market mapping workshops, how to engage key public and private market actors and how to help them move from plans to actions that can make their market system work better for poverty reduction at scale.

"Tie Agriculture With Women"

SUJAN PIYA Ph. D, head of program, Agriculture, Food Security and Markets of Practical Action, is now leading a project, Promotion of Sustainable Agriculture for Nutrition and Food Security, in far west. As the project is at the implementation stage, Piya spoke to New Spotlight on various issues. Excerpts:

Issue Name : Vol: 08 No. -11 November. 21- 2014 (Mansir 5, 2071)

2

SUJAN PIYA

What is the state of Promotion of Sustainable Agriculture for Nutrition and Food Security Project (POSANFS)?
With the financial support of the European Union, Practical Action has initiated POSANFS (Promotion of Sustainable Agriculture for Nutrition and Food Security) project directly targeting 7,000 households, including 20 percent dalits and 50 percent women from Achham, Bajhang, Bajura and Doti districts. This project is related to food and nutrition. However, this project aims at commercialization of agriculture.  If we are able to increase the income of farmers, we can help increase food and nutrition.  Our major focus is commercialization of agriculture. Thus, the project is implemented through clusters which have the potential for the commercialization of agriculture.http://www.spotlightnepal.com/News/Article/Tie-Agriculture-With-Women#.VHKxsx87vPc.twitter