Abstract

SOSEC implemented a potato production pocket, Bajhthala in Dailekh District aiming to increase farmers’ income by promoting production and marketing of agricultural crops with a particular focus on secondary crops in project areas. The project was lunched for three years by SOSEC. The term of the project completed in December 2006. Assessment on the impact on change in income, cropping pattern, social ethics, people’s attitude and behavior felt necessary by SOSEC.

The methodology for impact applied is mainly household visit and interview, field observation and transit visit.

The study concludes that the efforts of SOSEC are producing satisfactory results. So far the program has been applied to a small proportion of population in the project area. By continuing the positive aspects and correcting the weak aspects entangled with potato production program, project needs to be extended.

Acknowledgement

We would like to express our sincere gratitude to SOSEC Dailekh for providing this opportunity of carrying out this impact study. Sincere gratitude also goes to Mr. Surya Nath Yogi (District Agriculture Development Officer, Dailekh), Mr. Hira Singh Thapa (Chairperson, SOSEC), Miss Shrada Yogi (Executive Director, SOSEC), Mr. Puran Bahadur Thapa and Mr. Min Bahadur Shahi (JT, District Agriculture Development Office, Dailekh), Mr. Rameshwor Rai (Agriculture Officer, SOSEC) for their kind support in accomplishing the study.

Our special thanks and gratitude goes to Mr. Sher Bahadur Thapa for providing guidance, support and hard-work in collecting valuable information from the field during our field visit in community.

We are highly indebted to all respondents for their sincere response during the study work.

Table of Contents

Particulars Page No.

Cover page  i
Introduction:
Annexes:
Annex-1 Details of sampled population
Annex-2 Findings based on Pivot table
A glance of potato impact study

Abbreviations  ii

Abstract  iii

Acknowledgement  iv

Table of content  v

Background 1

Justification  1

Objectives  2

Limitation of study  2

Study Area  2

Methodology  2-3

Study team  3

Analytical procedure  3

Socio-ethnic population composition  4

Findings  4-7

Success story  8

Conclusion and recommendation  9

1. Introduction

1.1. Background

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) supported Crop Diversification Project (CDP) had covered 12 districts (Banke, Bardiya, Dailekh, Dang and Surkhet in the Mid-Western Development Region, and Accham, Baitadi, Dadeldhura, Doti, Kailali and Kanchanpur in the Far-Western Development Region) of Nepal. The project was under implementation from July 2001 to December 2006. Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperative (MOAC)’s the Department of Agriculture (DOA) was executing agency which worked through project coordination unit (PCU).

The project aimed to increase farmers’ income by promoting production and marketing of agricultural crops with a particular focus on secondary crops in project areas. The project focused on production pocket areas as growth centers. Activities were based on a farmer’s group approach in agricultural extension. One of the components of the project was to promote the use of private extension service providers (PSP), including NGOs and CBOs to strengthen farmer groups and provide agricultural extension services for them.

To implement this project and strengthen farmer groups and provide agricultural extension services, SOSEC was selected. SOSEC is  a non-governmental organization (NGO), registered in Dailekh District working in community development activities to provide services to rural communities to enhance capacity in order to uplift the rural living standard, for many years. SOSEC implemented this project for three years in its allocated project area namely Potato Production Pocket, Bajhthala, Dailekh. This pocket area covered four VDC, of Dailekh District

i.e. Bhawani, Kharigaira, Raniban and Kanshikadh.

During the project period , SOSEC provided different varieties of potato seed to the target people like Cardinal and Kufrejoti. To reduce the disease suspect ion SOSEC provide T.P.S. potato seeds to community.

1.1.2 Justification

The term of potato production project was finished in December 2006. A big resource has been involved to materialize the set objective of the project. Focus of the program was to implement social mobilization and extension activities at the pocket level to develop market-led production activities through farmers’ group approach. To evaluate the impact of the performed activities, evaluation is essential to see whether the project has produced desired result and find a clear way forward.

To see the impact of the project intervention, in request of SOSEC Dailekh, Nucleus for Empowerment through Skill Transfer (NEST) Pokhara conducted this impact evaluation.

1.2. Objective

•     To assess the impact of the introduced improved varieties of potato among target communities after the implementation of Potato Cultivation Project

1.2.1. Specific Objectives

♦ To identify the status of continuation of improved variety potato cultivation by the target communities ♦ To evaluate the change occurred in income level of the community people ♦ To analyze attitude and behavior of the beneficiaries in relation to the improved variety potato cultivation ♦ To asses achievements and problems encountered by the people during the project ♦ To forward recommendation on the basis of learning/experiences

1.3. Limitation of Study

1. 1.         The study could not explicitly see the impact of project activities specific to rich and poor people.
2. 2.         The sampling intensity applied for impact evaluation is 12.6%, i.e. appropriate for inferences drawn for the population at satisfactory level. For high level of precision and accuracy it needs to take high level of sampling intensity.

1.4. Study Area

1.4.1. Location

Total 7 wards of four VDCs, namely Bhawani, Kharigaira, Raniban and Kashikadh of Dailekh District were selected for the impact study of potato. These VDCs were established as a potato pocket area by SOSEC, Dailekh and are located in North-West direction from the District head quarter. It takes about four to six hour on foot to travel to District head quarter form these VDCs.

2. Methodology

2.1. Sampling Technique

For collecting primary information the sampling technique adopted is simple random sampling. It has been considered that it would be an unbiased technique in selecting sampling units. SOSEC, Dailekh worked with two groups in Bhawani, two groups in Kharigaira, four groups in Raniban and 5 groups in Kanshikadh VDCs. All together 13 working groups were formed consisting 260 house holds. Numbers of sample beneficiaries in each VDC were allocated based on the number of groups and no of households. The sampling intensity was 12.58%. Total member of 32 households were visited and questionnaire survey (Annex 1) was carried out.

2.2. Other Methods

Transit survey and field visits were made to find in-depth information in the area of concern. Additionally, informal discussion and participant observation was also carried out to the persons visited in local teashop and elsewhere.

To collect the secondary information, discussion was made with Mr. Surya Nath Yogi (District Agriculture Development Officer, Dailekh), Mr. Puran Bahadur Thapa and Mr. Min Bahadur Shahi (JT, District Agriculture Development Office, Dailekh), Mr. Rameshwor Rai and Sher Bahadur Thapa (Agriculture Officer and Field supervisor, SOSEC, respectively).

Table 1: VDC wise population and sample size

2.3. Study Team

A team having academic background in Social science, Economics and Agriculture did the data collection for the study. The team was comprised of Mr. Guna Kumar Shrestha (Agriculturist) and Mr. Rabin Shrestha (Socio-economist) having considerable experiences in the area of community development and research activities.

2.4. Analytical Procedure

The collected data was coded as per the objective of the study. The data input was done in Microsoft excel worksheet. The tabulated data was then analyzed by sorting, filtering, and using pivot table and pivot chart report. The analyzed data is tabulated in annex 2.

3. Socio-ethnic population composition

Chart 1: Caste distribution

The caste distribution and sex ratio data among the sampled population shows the high frequency of Brahmin and low of Dalit. About 31% of the sampled population was female.

The presence of Thakuri was about 32%. The average age of the sampled population was 42 and the total population in sampled households was 276.

Table 2: Caste/sex wise population of target communities

4. Finding

4.1. General findings

4.1.1    People started cultivating improved variety of potato after the project intervention by SOSEC. People practiced its cultivating twice a year as they were trained for necessary skills and provided materials and technical services.

72% of the sampled population expressed that with the introduction of improved variety potato production ratio has been increased encouragingly. 3% sampled population felt indifference in the production ratio.

1. 4.1.2    50% of the population found low disease incidences in improved variety whereas 22% feel more disease incidences and 9% found it indifference in comparison to local variety. Similarly, 62% of the population felt easy to treat the disease in improved variety rather than local.
2. 4.1.3    The storage capacity of the improved variety found to be long. 81% of the population said, improved potato seeds could be stored for long period in rustic store rather than local.
3. 4.1.4    People consider that investment in improved potato variety is high in relation to the local one however, good income supersedes this disadvantage.
4. 4.1.5    94% of the population found very interested to continue potato cultivation as an enterprise. However, due to different practical difficulties (i.e. limited land and human resource, low irrigation facility, low market accessibility and out migration) it is not letting them to continue potato production as a major source of income. Despite the above, 69% of the sampled population found cultivating potato as a main business (sale for food and seed) and rest 31% of the population found producing it to feed only their family.
5. 4.1.6    91% of the sampled population found very satisfied with the potato project. 84% of them found utilizing the income from the potato business for meeting their daily household level needs, health care, education of the children and sometimes the purchasing of land.
6. 4.1.7    Field data confirms that the people use negligible amount of chemical fertilizer and insecticides/pesticides in the fields. Almost 84% of the population was using farmyard manure/compost to produce potato. Rest of the population found using chemical fertilizer together with farmyard manure where there low soil fertility.
7. 4.1.8    During the project period SOSEC provided different services to make the target people equipped and run the potato project successfully in a sustainable manner.

Training, exposure visits, potato seed distribution, and regular technical advices were major services provided by SOSEC to the target communities. 38% of the sampled population found trained together with support of improved potato seeds, 31% were provided with seed only, and 13% got training and exposure visit opportunity together with seed and pesticides support. However, 9% of the sampled population found not getting any services form SOSEC.

The technology found transferred to the surrounding communities as they share their knowledge and skills and also demonstrate the technology to them.

Besides supporting for potato, SOSEC had provided the communities with other agriculture crop seed as well i.e. rice, wheat, maize, cabbage, cauliflower, beans, radish, and other vegetables seeds.

Regular technical advices and support by the field technicians of SOSEC was felt most effective for producing desirable output during the project implementation period.

Table 3: Services provided by SOSEC, Dailekh

4.1.9    Based on the data, mobilization of female in decision making and access and control in resources, mainly in potato production seems countable. About 41% female played vital role in decision making in selecting potato cultivation as of main enterprise.  Beside, 19% women made decision by taking active part in discussion with their male members of the family for choosing potato cultivation as a business.

Chart 2: Access and control in income

34% of the female has the control and access in mobilizing income earned from potato sales. Similarly, 19% of female make decisions together with male for income and expenditure. This data indicates good social mobilization performance in project intervention.

6 About 91% of the sampled population expressed that the technology has been transferred to neighboring communities because of good production and income from it.

4.1.10  78% of the sampled population have positive attitude towards improved variety as it produces good income to them.  Only 12% of the population found dissatisfied as they could not generate a god income from it because of low scale of production and technology requirement.

Chart 3: Satisfaction level of income in improved variety

1. 4.1.11  It was found that 47% of the people felt hardship to produce improved variety of potato rather than local. However, because of good productivity, taste and income 94% of the sampled population was very much interested to cultivate it continuously. Among the distributed improved varieties of potato seed cardinal was selected as superior by 88% of the sampled population.
2. 4.1.12  100% of the sampled population was fully satisfied with the work of SOSEC. Lunched potato project found to be the major activity of income source throughout the potato pocket area. Technical and material support form SOSEC played vital role to motivate the target people to produce potato in order to generate income for sustainable livelihoods. Most of the people showed their satisfaction towards established rustic store and were demanding to establish more and large capacity rustic stores nearby their respective VDCs.

Discontinuation of the potato program made the whole community depressed and was expecting continuation of the program in the area again. 84% of the sampled population expressed their demands for Agriculture road and small irrigation projects to develop these VDCs as a major potato pocket area of Nepal.

7

5 Success Stories

Success Story I

“I am able to overcome all the problems

because of the newly introduced potato”

Shashi Ram Jaisi Kharigaira-8

It was being thorny to pass the lives of nearly a dozen family members because of the lack of sufficient income for fulfilling daily basic needs and maintaining a minimum standard. I had tried my best for 50 years of my life, but could not reach the point of satisfaction. Potato is the only income source for us. I used to cultivate local potato following the traditional method. It had low production rate, and used to take longer period to harvest.

On 2060 BS, SOSEC—an NGO located at Dailekh— provided us seed potato of Cardinal variety. They further provided us technical assistance with regular follow-up. They not only provided the new variety of potato, but also showed us way of happy life- equity and equality in the family.

I cultivated potato in the assistance of technicians of SOSEC. They inspired not to use chemical fertilizers, pesticides and insecticides. I tried my best for organic way of cultivation. It became a bit difficult for cultivating the crop. There is insufficient irrigation facility in our village. Oh! Surprising result! It became ready to harvest within 5 months. The earlier cultivated potato used to take more than six months to harvest. Now, we can cultivate potato twice a year. It raised our income highly. SOSEC managed Rustic store for storage of seed potato. It made us out-of-fear. Further, the newly introduced potato has better storage quality.

There is easier access of market. It takes hardly two hours to reach to market. Mule and tractor are used to carry the load. Now, it is easy for me to overcome the household problems and maintain the basic standard of life fulfilling the basic needs including education, health and happy celebration of the festivals.

I am entirely satisfied with the newly introduced potato in our village : Cardinal, and the farmer-supporting program launched by SOSEC. It would be very grateful for us if the program is continued.

Success Story II

“I settled my family cultivating potato”

Ms. Nanda Kafle Bhawani-4, Chhana, Dailekh

Actually, I was new in the Bhawani village. I was displaced from Kalikot to Dailekh during the armed-conflict period. It was new place for me. I used to cultivate local potato for passing our lives. It was only the way of sustaining the family. On 2060, it came to know that a new income generating program is going to be launched in our village. I also became member of a functional-group.

SOSEC, an NGO working in Dailekh district, provided us new variety of potato named Cardinal. Being a member of the group, I had the responsibility of cultivating potato. I had to report properly in time. It would be difficult for me to do everything without active support of my husband. We actively cultivated potato. SOSEC provided us the seed of other green vegetables as well. The technicians of SOSEC suggested us not to use the chemical fertilizer, pesticide and insecticide. We followed their suggestion.

It took to be ready for harvest. Now, we could produce potato twice a year. It increased our income. We became able to buy more land in the first year of cultivation. The people of neighboring districts- Kalikot and Jumla knew about the newly introduced potato. They demanded seed potato. In the second and their year, I produced more potato for seed and sold. I could sell seed potato in high rate.

Now, we have no problem in fulfilling basic needs. I am able to educate children, expend in feast and festivals and maintain the standard of life.  Potato is everything for us. We have no other income sources except potato. SOSEC helped us to sustain in the village and maintain standard of life.

I am a bit gloomy listening that the program is going to be phased out. I request to implement the next phase of the program.

1. 6. Conclusion and Recommendation
2. 6.1 Conclusion

SOSEC, Dailekh has achieved a remarkable success in raising income level of people within its project area. The program has contributed its effort in income generation for sustainable rural livelihoods. More than 90% of the population has adopted introduced improved varieties of potatoes as a major source of income and are very satisfied with the work and services of SOSEC. People are expecting SOSEC to continue the project to help in technical and material support in order to equip community people for uplifting their living standard.

72% of the sampled population found having increased in amount of production of introduced improved variety rather than local. Similarly, it has been found that 78% of the people agree with the high income form the improved variety rather than local. 88% of the sampled population found preferred Cardinal variety of potato among the introduced varieties by the SOSEC.

Data of involvement of women in decision making process, access and control in income and fund mobilization system exposes the good sign of social mobilization performed by SOSEC in this area. Interest of more than 90% sampled population toward the continuation of potato cultivation shows the admirable impact of the technical and material support activities provided by SOSEC.

6.2. Recommendation

The following are general suggestions for future action.

1. 1.         The project area is quite distant form the district head quarter as it takes 5 – 6 hours travel on foot. Availability of basic infrastructure services i.e. construction of agriculture road and small irrigation system in partnership with the target community is crucial to ensure potato production business.
2. 2.         The project has made valuable contribution by introducing improved variety of potato cultivation technology. Replication of this valuable learning to the neighboring communities is easy and well adoptable if a mechanism of farmer to farmer technology transfer is applied. Production of local resource persons from the active farmers for the same and their mobilization is recommended crucial task for the extension project.
3. 3.         Sustainability of given income generating activity depends on strong institutional arrangement and market access. Formation of farmers’ co-operative that manages local production by establishing good working relationship among different stakeholders is essential to ensure regular service availability and sale of products.
4. 4.         The concerned communities have expectation of extension of project for some additional years until they feel full confident in implementing the program by their own. Unusual termination of the program brings people depressed with increase in negative attitude towards development initiatives supported by outsiders. If possible, it would be better to make access with concerned donor organizations to continue this project for additional 3 years.

Annex-1 Details of sampled population Annex-2 Findings based on Pivot table

2. Sex ratio

Female

10 Male

22 Total

32

12. Test of potato compared to local variety

Testy

29 Less testy than local

3 Total

32

A GLANCE OF POTATO IMPACT STUDY

Women participants in Bhawani during interview

Facilitator and participant busy in interview Participant showing potato disease during field visit

Participant irrigating potato cultivated Harvested potato by participants