Nepal integrated cereals project evaluation report

External evaluation covers 1975-2/83 and is based on document review and site visits. Results are mixed. The project has successfully strengthened commodity research programs for wheat, rice, and maize; initiated CSP research; and helped to upgrade the DOA"s capacity to screen and select improved technologies developed elsewhere for cereal crops. It has also initiated a pilot production program which has been successful in several locations in mobilizing extension and input delivery services and helping farmers overcome their reluctance to try new technologies (using a "block" approach to extend technologies to farmers); minikits used by the program to promote improved varieties and fertilizer use, while not without problems, will be useful in future promotional activities. Also, most construction activities have been completed satisfactorily (although seed processing units at the major commodity stations are not yet in operation). Training and the provision of equipment have enhanced research capabilities, but problems (inappropriate equipment, lack of trained staff to operate equipment) remain. The seed production component in particular has been problematical. Long-term sustainability, however, is in question. It is not likely that the generation of improved technology, especially for the hills, and its transfer to farmers will be fully realized at project end in mid-1984. Project designers may have overestimated the strengths of agricultural support services (extension, input delivery, credit, marketing, transport) and underestimated the difficulties of institutionalizing a program as revolutionary as CSP. CSP is unlikely to survive in its present form unless additional inputs are provided after the project ends; commodity research will need further strengthening, as well. The project has been hindered by the DOA"s inability to set research priorities and oversee research-extension linkages and by frequent changes in leadership and policy (at both the departmental and ministerial levels). Also, the DOA"s unattractive career and training prospects have hampered recruitment of socioeconomists needed for the commodity programs; those socioecnomists who are at post are generally not doing work that utilizes their training. Moreover, although CSP has focused its efforts in the hills, most of its benefits are, over the medium term, likely to be centered in the flatlands, which are better endowed in terms of soil, water, and input resources. All three major commodity stations are located in the flatlands. (Adapted from ANE Executive Summary, PD-AAT-669, pp.74-76)