Greening for gains: An experience of off-season vegetable farming in flood-prone riverbeds in the eastern Terai of Nepal
Nityananda Khanal , Dharma Prasad Pande and Krishna Prasad Gupta

Vast area of lands are flooded by numerous rives in the terai of Nepal every year. Between the periods of two successive flooding seasons, the riverbeds mostly remain nude or sparsely covered with uneconomical grasses. In the effort of providing the poor and landless people with some agriculture-based livelihood options, FORWARD started some participatory adaptive trials and demonstrations on various cucurbitaceous vegetables on the riverbeds in Morang district since 2000 and gradually built on appropriate technological package over years. Now the package of practices has been thoroughly standardized and promoted in several blocks through group approach in Morang and Banke districts. Economic analysis has shown that growing cucurbitaceous vegetables on the riverbeds with the standard package of practices is highly remunerative. The profitability is attributed to the lower intensity of crop pests and diseases and to the early season production of crops that fetch higher price. This paper highlights on the technical procedures, management strategies and comparative advantages of the vegetable farming on the riverbeds.

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