Striving to become the source of organic vegetable seeds in the east, a farmer in Orong Gewog in Samdrup Jongkhar currently distributes seeds to Trashigang, Trashi Yangtse and Samdrup Jongkhar. Sale of organic vegetable seeds has turned out to be a lucrative business.
Only two farmers in Samdrup Jongkhar had ventured into producing organic vegetable seeds for commercial purposes.
One of them is 72-year-old M.C Gurung in Morong, who has everything it needs for thriving, gainful business including buyers from eastern districts.
In an acre of land surrounding his house, M C Gurung uses only cow dung and urine to grow his organic seeds. He acquired the knowledge of producing organic seeds at a training given by agriculture ministry a few years back.
“I have been doing this business for three years now and during the first year, I got a profit of Nu 56,000. During the second year, I just earned Nu 19,000 from selling vegetable seeds. After that, I have been getting Nu 20,000 to 30,000 every year,” said M.C Gurung, a Farmer in Orong Gewog.
He grows more than 10 varieties of vegetable seeds such as broccoli, peas, beans, cabbage, chillies and many other vegetables. But last year, he had difficulty selling his seeds.
“I have many seeds left unsold, about 300 packets of radish seeds, 200 packets of broccoli seeds and about 100 packets of spinach seeds,” he added.
The District Agriculture Sector plans to buy all the vegetable seeds produced from his farm. This would lessen Gurung’s burden on finding a market for his seeds.
Kinley Wangchuk
