| Abstract |
Improved seed is an important agricultural input to boost production and productivity of crops per unit area. Availability, affordability and accessibility of quality seeds of preferred varieties remain to be a challenge to farmers in the developing countries including Nepal. The seed replacement rate of major food crops in Nepal is below 15% and majority of rural farmers use farm-saved seeds of inferior quality often leading to low productivity and subsistence livelihood. Considering the importance of seed in the country’s sustainable economic growth, the Government of Nepal (GoN) through its policy documents such as National Seed Vision 2013-25 and Agriculture Development Strategy (2015) has emphasized on the public private partnership approach to make the seed system more inclusive and competitive. In line with GoN’s agricultural strategies, USAID’s Nepal Seed and Fertilizer (NSAF) Project has been launched in 2016 to foster competitive and synergistic seed and fertilizer value chains for inclusive and sustainable growth in agricultural productivity, business development, and income generation in Nepal. The seed industry in Nepal, as true to most developing countries, is at an emerging stage and untapped due to several reasons inter alia lack of working capital to start-ups, lack of business/investment incentives to the sector, shortage of ideal technologies & required technical expertise across the seed value chain. To address this, NSAF is engaging Nepalese seed companies in a business mentoring process to enhance their capacity in new products testing and deployment, business and marketing plan development, and in general to equip seed companies with required skills for a viable and competitive seed business in general and hybrid seed business in particular. |
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