INTRODUCTION
Nepal is a small country situated (260 22" to 300 27" North and 800 4" to 880 12" East) in between two large countries, China to North and India to East, South and West. Geographically, the country is divided into the Terai ("Flat land"), the Hill and the Mountain, the altitude of which ranges from 61 amsl in the Terai to 8848 amsl in the Mountain (Chhetry 1994). However, farming is largely restricted to below 3000 amsl for climatic reasons. Due to its location and also because of sharp changes in topography caused by large variation in altitude, the country experiences a tropical climate in Terai, sub-tropical and warm temperate in the hills and cool and dry temperate in the mountain region (CBS 1993).

In view of existence of these different climate mainly temperature, Nepal is found to be suitable for production of varieties of horticultural commodities both for domestic and external markets. Looking into these huge potentialities and possibilities of horticultural crop development for income generation of hill farmers thereby improve their living standard, His Majesty's Government of Nepal has been making her efforts for systemic research and development programme by establishing the various horticultural crop zones within the country. These zones are as follows:

VEGETABLE SEED PRODUCTION ZONE OF THE COUNTRY

A) Temperate Vegetable Seed Production Zone
This zone is located from high hill to mountain, the altitude of which ranges from 2000 to 2700 amsl. Although large number of temperate crops can successfully be grown, vegetable seed crops that need high chilling during vegetative phase for flower bud induction are best suited at rain shadow Districts of the country. These Districts are Baitadi, Darchula, Bajhang, Bajura, Jumla, Mugu, Humla, Dolpa, Mustang and Manang which are situated at far western to western development region lying in northern to western part of the country. Agriculture research station, Jumla, (Horticulture) Rajkot, has been doing research activities on temperate fruit, vegetable and vegetable seed crops.

It has been proved that the following crops the seeds of which can easily be commercially produced are:

Cauliflower:	Snow Ball type
Cabbage:	Copenhegans Market type
Carrot :	Nantes and Kurada type
Khoerabi :	White Viena type
Brussel suprout :	Temperate type
Radish :	Tokinashi and Cherrybell type
Hill buckwheat :	Local type

Production of perishable commodities like temperate fruit, off-season fresh vegetable, flower, meat, milk and milk products is technically and economically possible. However, due to remoteness of the areas contributing for lack of road and market, production of above commodities is not viable in near future. It is therefore, the production of high value with low volume crops seed like vegetable seed is one of the option of cash income generation for poor and small farmers of the remote hill and mountain villages.

The high hill and mountain districts where the above vegetable seeds are produced are:

• Jumla
• Dolpa
• Baitadi
• Mustang

B) Warm Temperate and Sub-tropical Vegetable Seed Production Zone
This zone covers the areas of mid-hills running from east to west of the country and the altitude of these areas ranges from 850-2000 amsl. Vegetable seed crops that require low chilling for flowering are here grown for quality seed production. The mid hills which are utilized for production of following high value vegetable crops are mostly linked with road and if they are away it is one day walk from production village to road head or market centre. Looking into the huge potentially of the area for seed production in terms of acreas, farmers interest, their co-operativeness, available of plenty of labour, irrigation facilities etc. the mid hills are attractively suitable for seed production of following vegetable crops. These crops are:

Cauliflower:	Warm temperate type and tropical type
Radish :	Mino Early and 40 Days type
Onion :	Short days (Red Creole, White Creole type)
Pole bean :	Kentucky wonder type
Bush bean :	Contender type
Chinese Cabbage :	Both heading and leafy type
Turnip :	Purple top type
Carrot :	New Kuroda type
Broad leaf mustard :	Khumal type
Radish :	Sprouting cultivar type
Buck wheat :	Local hill type
Vegetable Soybean :	Long pod type
Green Mung :	Local type
Black gram :	Local type
Cucumber :	Semi tropical type
Tomato :	All type
Capsicum :	California Wonder type
Hot chilly :	Local long type
Broad bean :	Large grain type
Squash (zucchini) :	Gray type

During 1999/2000 about 500 metric tons of vegetable seeds of above crops and their varieties from this zone was produced and 90% of them were consumed in domestic market and 10 % of them were exported to neighboring countries. The mid hill districts from where the above seeds are produced are:

Rukum, Rolpa, Piuthane, and Sallyan districts
Parbat, Myagdi, Baglung and Kaski districts
Nuwakot, Bhaktapur and Kathmandu districts
Dadeldhura, Dailekh and Doti districts
Dhankuta, Terahathum, Sankhuwasava and Bhojpur districts.

C) Tropical Vegetable Seed Production Zone
This zone Covers the areas from Terai (flat land in southern parts of the country running from east to west), inner Terai to river basin of the hill where the climate is tropical in nature. The altitude of these areas ranges from 61 to 500 meter from the sea level. Road accessibilities are available in this zone. Lands are flat in Terai but they are terraced and large in river basin of the hills. Adequate irrigation facility is available for seed production. The seeds of following crops are produced economically in this zone.

Bottle gourd Local Cultivars
Sponge gourd Local Cultivars
Bitter gourd Local Cultivars
Tropical cucumber Local Cultivars
Tomato Local and improved Cultivars
Brinjal Local and improved Cultivars
Hot chillies Local and improved Cultivars
Cowpea Local and improved Cultivars
Pea Local and improved Cultivars
Tropical radish Local and improved Cultivars
Tropical Cauliflower Local and improved Cultivars
Buckwheat Local Cultivars
Black gram Local Cultivars
Mung bean Local Cultivars
Rajma bean Local and improved Cultivars

The above seeds are produced at Terai and inner Terai districts. They are:

• Sarlahi
• Dang
• Surkhet

VEGETABLE SEED REQUIREMENT FOR THE COUNTRY

Off-season fresh vegetable is one of the important commodities for income generation particularly for the hill farmers where roads are available. Markets for this commodity is also well established within Nepal and outside Nepal mainly neighboring countries like India, Bangladesh and China (Lasa, Khasa and other parts of Tibet). These off-season fresh vegetables are produced in the hills from June to November for Nepal, India and Bangladesh markets. It has been observed in recent years that the areas under vegetable crop, number of farmers involved on vegetable farming and numbers of marketers have been increasing very sharply and as a result of these the demand of vegetable seed has also been increasing significantly (Table-1)

Table- 1, Vegetable seed requirement for the country during 1999/2000.

1. Area under fresh vegetable (hectare) 1,51,000.00
2. Seed requirement (ton) 1,283.00
3. Seed produced in Nepal (ton) 500.00
4. Seed deficit (ton) 783.00

The table shows that 61 % of the seed requirements of the country is supplied by the seed produced in Nepal and rest of the seeds that is 39 % is made available from import.

It is also reported from various seed companies of Nepal that the use of import seeds mainly of hybrid cultivars is increasing day by day due to lack of seed production of hybrid variety in Nepal. All the hybrid seeds used by hill farmers are imported and they are from following countries :

• Japan
• Holland
• USA
• India
• South Korea
• Denmark

There are 23 vegetable crops the hybrid seeds of, which are imported into Nepal through various seed companies. However, many such hybrid seeds are imported through India and Bangladesh. Similarly, the seeds of open pollinated varieties, which are very popular, are also imported. There are 22 such commercial vegetable crop.

Vegetable farming season in Nepal
We have two types of commercial vegetable farming in the hill in open natural condition one is the normal season farming and the most attractive and recent one is the off-season vegetable farming. Following table shows the season of some of the commercial vegetable crop farming in Nepal.

S.N.	Crop	Normal Season	Off-season
1	Cabbage	Dec - April	May - Nov
2	Cauliflower	Feb - Sep	May - Nov
3	Tomato	Oct - April	May - Nov
4	Capsicum	Oct - July	August - March
5	Broccoli	Sep - Feb	March - April
6	Chinese cabbage	Sep - Feb	March - April
7	Carrot	Sep - April	May - Oct
8	Cucumber	Feb - July	August - Feb
9	Zucchini	Feb - July	August - Feb
10	Onion	Dec - May	June - Dec
11	Beet	Sep - Feb	March - Sep
12	Lettuce	Sep - March	April - Sep
13	Radish	Sep - Feb	March - Oct
14	pea	Oct - March	April - Oct

Note: Season means from sowing to harvest.

Custom seed production in Nepal.
Our company is pleased to announce that we can produce seed of any open pollinated or F1 hybrid cultivar seed of any crop that is climatically suitable in above zones of Nepal. Apart from seeds, which are virtually produced for resowing, we also produce the seeds that are used as food or food ingredient in food processing or in agro- based food industry.

Besides the seed production of our variety/ cultivars we also wish to undertake the customs seed or custom food grain production in the hills of Nepal. We assure you that we can do so successfully which are beneficial for both the partners. We have bean producing the seeds or grains for the last 10 years and every year we have bean producing about 30-50 tons mainly for domestic market. The seed production of both types (Customs and our own variety) is guarantee due to presence of following things with us.

We have identified the most suitable and potential production areas for different crops and varieties in different environmental conditions of the hills for seed production.

We have trained adequate number of skill farmers in seed production. We have also made many seed producer groups in different hills for different crops.

We also have well qualified and well experienced vegetable seed scientists and breeder from M.Sc. to Ph. D. level of qualification.

We have modest facilities of store, grading, packing and also small seed testing laboratory and we have decided to install a very modern but medium capacity type of seed processing plant.

We also have established the system of post control testing of freshly produced seed before we deliver them.

We have import and export license from the Nepal government.

We also have our own farm of 10 hector where we test and produce the varieties and seed of mainly vegetable crops.

Marketing of imported seed
Based on the needs of the fresh vegetable growers, we also market the imported vegetable seeds of hybrid and open-pollinated cultivars. At present, we have highest share of market and marketing of imported seed in Nepal. However, we are not directly involved in importing from international or multinational seed companies. Now, we have plan to import directly from such international seed company who has no distributors in Nepal or even if there are distributors for Nepal and if the company wish that we also work with them, we are quit happy to accept such offer. If every thing goes well, we are interested to work immediately under the terms and conditions suitable for both the parties. However, we would like to test the cultivars in some of the sensitive crops in commercial farmers field before we do the commercial business.

Marketing network/channel
Apart from production, we are also marketing the seeds produced in Nepal and out side Nepal through importing. Before actually we market the seeds of new variety either introduced from foreign country or selected from Nepal, we test them at different environmental conditions/ ecological zones where vegetable farming is commercialized. We strongly, believe that our present level of market share can significantly be increased by many fold provided we have choice of varieties suitable for various environmental conditions and tolerance to various diseases and possibly pests. On the top of these we have the following added means of marketing.

There are about 121 agrovets situated in different parts of the country where fresh vegetable farming is commercialized. These agrovets are working as our distributors/ dealers.

We also have equally good relationship with the fresh vegetable grower groups located in different parts of the country. We are also gradually marketing our seeds and other imputes through them.

Apart from supplying the seeds, we also provided technical services like field based training, field visit and supervision disease and pest preventive and control measure and post harvest technologies for improving the quality.

We also have very good co-ordination and strong linkage with many NGO, INGO and GO who are involved in rural development including off-season vegetable farming for income generation of the hill farmers for minimizing their poverty.

The hills have the comparative advantages for producing the off-season fresh vegetable, from June to mid November which is not possible to produce them in Terai of Nepal and India due to mainly temperature factor. It is therefore, the markets of off-season fresh vegetable farming has been increasing very fast and as a result the demand of seed is also increasing day by day.

Joint venture activities
Our company is also equally interested for joint venture activities on research and development in the hybrid and inbred (O.P) variety development, hybrid and O.P. seed production and their marketing.

Brand name
Our company has our own brand name both for whole and retail sale. However, we are interested to work with multinational / international seed company through their trade brand name for marketing the seeds widely produced in Nepal and even elsewhere but high priority is give for Nepal seed.

Seed processing plant
We have at present small seed processing plant and we have decided that we are going to install a medium type capacity of latest and the most advanced seed processing plant in Kathmandu in view of our expanding the seed business activities. It will be the only one in Nepal in seed business.

Fund
Our company has adequate fund for running the present and future seed business and we aim to expend our activities because our present activities encourages us very much and we see enormous opportunity and potentialities of this business in Nepal.

Organic vegetable and food grain production
We have also started the production of organic vegetable, or rice, or pulses (bean, mung, lentil, broad been, buckwheat) as a trial initially at our Nakhu farm, Lalitpur, Nepal and we are selling them at local market. We also welcome interested organization for joint venture on organic vegetable and other organic grain production and marketing.