National Outreach Research Centre on behalf of Nepal Agricultural Research Council organized an Entrepreneur Farmer- Agricultural Scientist Interaction Workshop on 7th Mangsir, 2078 at Khumaltar, Lalitpur. This workshop is first of its kind and was a historic event to address the farmer’s problem directly by the concerned scientists. The one day workshop was chaired by Dr. Deepak Bhandari, Executive Director, Nepal Agricultural Research Council amidst the presence of Dr. Govinda Prasad Sharma, respected Secretary (Agriculture Development), Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock Development. Altogether 48 entrepreneur farmers from 15 different districts representing 13 different agricultural sectors interacted directly with 24 Scientists of NARC representing different disciplines.
Dr. Dhruba Raj Bhattarai, Chief, National Outreach Research Centre welcomed all the participants and highlighted the objectives and importance of the workshop. The technical session commenced with the presentation of three technical papers. Dr. Amit Timilsina presented on “Climate change, its impact and mitigation strategies”. Similarly, Raju Kandel, Senior Scientist, presented on “Technical aspects of goat farming” while Dr. Shreemat Shrestha, Principal Scientist, presented on “Farm mechanization in mid hills of Nepal”. In addition, Dr. Shree Prasad Vista, Senior Scientist demonstrated briefly the use and utility of Digital Soil Map of Nepal. Entrepreneur farmers put forth questions and problems they faced on their respective sectors and the panel of scientists addressed them based on available technologies and their research findings. Those problems, whose instant solutions are not available, were noted as potential researchable issues. Similarly, farmers raised a lot of policy related issues and respected Secretary, MoALD addressing them requested for a concerted effort from all the stakeholders to solve them. He appreciated the efforts made by NARC to address the technical problems faced by entrepreneur farmers with this workshop.
Dr. Swayam Prakash Shrestha, Director, Livestock and Fisheries Research, NARC being grateful to see farmer-scientist together, requested the farmers to out scale the good deeds of the scientists while continuously provide constructive feedback on their shortcomings. Dr. Dodhraj Khanal, Acting Director, NASRI on his closing remarks thanked the organizer for the initiation of this farmer-scientist interaction and requested for the replication of the same in all provinces. Both Scientists and Farmers suggested a separate interaction programs for Crop, Horticulture and Livestock & Fisheries sectors which would be more effective. Dr. Dhruba Raj Bhattrai, Convener of the workshop thanked all the farmers and scientists for their active participation in the interaction program and requested them to keep in touch in all the way possible. The inaugural session was facilitated by Mr. Kumar Mani Dahal while Mrs. Sharmila Piya and Bishwash Poudel served as the rapporteur of the workshop.
