A Happy and Satisfied Farmer: Success Story of Geeta Khatiwada

Geeta Khatiwada is a 33 year old farmer from Belkotgadhi. She lives with her family and has received education until SLC.

She owns 11 ropani of land in Belkotgadhi and cultivates grains and vegetables enough to feed her family. Since, her husband was abroad, she couldn’t give full time and energy to agriculture. Now, after her husband is back, they are into agriculture on a full time basis.

Geeta showed interest in off-season onion production and trained under the project Nepal Seed and Fertiliser. “Soon after transferring the onion sapling, we received heavy rainfall, some of the saplings got washed away and some were weakened. I was afraid that all my hard work would go in vain. I had never done onion farming in monsoon season. But, soon after the onion bulbs started to appear, I was convinced on off-season onion production possibility” said Geeta happily.  She harvested 135 kg of onion and sold them at 70 NPR. Per Kg earning NPR 9,450. “I will again farm off-season onion in next monsoon” said thrilled Geeta.
As her husband was also a migrant returnee, he participated in “vegetable production training for migrant returnee” program. Together they have started onion and cauliflower cultivation in 1 ropani of land each.
“We learnt so much from this training. We even didn’t know the species of onion, tomatoes and cauliflower that we are cultivating currently. We didn’t know about matching the season for cultivating according to their species. We also learnt about fertilizing technique, compost manure and pest control” said Geeta. 
“Now, our future plan is to stay in Nepal and continue production of tomatoes, cauliflower and onion. We don’t want to go abroad. We could earn so much more here”said Geeta’s husband. Although, quality seeds availability and proper management of marketing still remain as the main issues in agriculture sector.