VIN has been supporting to empower women by microcredit ,income generation and women education and life skills project in different working areas. The main focusing areas include Kavresthali and Jitpurphedi are a rural village of Kathmandu District, it is popular for its natural beauty and is located 6-9 km away from the ring road of Kathmandu. Most of the farmers (especially women) of these villages are engaged in agriculture. Majority of the farmers are focusing on the production of vegetables, leafy vegetables, pulses, poultry and livestock rather than cereals. To improve their cultivation practices of crops, recently we have conducted an agricultural training on cultivation practices of cucurbits (Cucumber) for the benefit of farmers and rural women in Jitpurphedi and Kavresthali. In that training, we focused on scientific and managed cultural practices in order to produce more and more commodity by less input. Although, we focused on how to manage and control disease and pests in effective through biological methods rather than chemicals
It is found that most of the farmers are growing crops traditionally. However, few farmers are innovative and are doing agriculture in a scientific and managed way. But the problem existing, is that most of the farmers are not following recommended dose of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides as well as recommended plant spacing due to which crops are more prone by diseases and pests as well as a huge amount of money is spent to buy chemicals and pests. The most vulnerable condition of farmland is that soil health is degrading each year due to excessive use of synthetic fertilizers; if such trends will never stop then one day will come where there is no Production of an agricultural commodity even if we provide any amount fertilizers. In addition, Production is less because they are growing crops in an open field rather than greenhouse due to lack of finance, knowledge, and subsidies. Furthermore, they are not familiar with the disease and pests (except some) and types of chemicals and pesticides application for particular disease and pests at critical life stages.
To minimize such problems we guide them about the determination of proper time of cultivation, methods of sowing, soil testing(PH, salt, alkaline), row to row and plant to plant distance, recommended dose of fertilizers and chemicals ,biological methods for controlling Disease and pests to maximize the products yields and quality by diverting farmers towards organic farming. We guided illiterate and innovative farmers towards organic farming by focusing on the using of compost, Farm Yard Manure, bio-pesticides, bio-fertilizers, crop rotation, trap crops, insects traps bottle and advantages as well as benefits of entomophagous insects to control harmful pests. That training was fully focused on the organic farming and maintenance of agro-ecosystem by reducing the use of chemicals and fertilizers in the Cucurbits as well as for other crops too.
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