LALITPUR: Experts today underlined the need to preserve vegetable seeds to increase agriculture yield and ensure food security in the country.

Speaking at a national interactive workshop on ‘Vegetable Seed Marketing Situation Analysis and Feedback for Improvement’ jointly organised here by Department of Agriculture (DoA), Swiss Development Co-operation and Centre for Agricultural Policy Research Extension and Development (CEAPRED), Hari Dahal, joint secretary, Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives said that the seed preservation was one of the keys to increasing the food production and to ensure food security. “We must give priority to seed security. Without quality seed, it would be illogical to expect high agricultural yield,” he argued. He also underscored the need to pay due attention by the government, semi-government agencies and the private sector in quality control so as to export the vegetable seeds in the international market.

Similarly, he also assured that the feedback and conclusion from the workshop would be taken positively to implement them in future. Dr Hari Krishna Upadhaya, executive chairman, CEAPRED said, “Due to the geological and biological diversity in Nepal, there is a great potential of vegetable seed production of different varieties.”

Bharat Prasad Upadhaya, executive director, CEAPRED, meanwhile, stated that vegetable seed production could be helpful in poverty reduction.

He said, “Vegetable seed production is one of the big sub-sectors of agriculture which needd to be promoted.”

Indra Raj Pandey, programme coordinator, Vegetable Seed Production Project, said that the seed Nepal was importing from foreign countries could be produced within the country.

During the program, Dibakar Poudyal, project consultant, presented paper on ‘vegetable seed import situation analysis and policy feedback for

import substitution strategy to the government of Nepal’. Gopal Prasad Shrestha, program director, vegetable directorate, and Kanchan Raj Pandey, senior agricultural economist, DoA, presented papers on ‘Vegetable seeds: present scenario and future way-outs.’