Educational Animations Released to Aid ﻿Nepal Lentil Farmers

Educational Animations Released to Aid Nepal Lentil Farmers

November 04, 2023

From the October 2023 Newsletter

Nepalese lentil farmers now have access to 15 educational animations in multiple languages designed to increase crop production and livelihoods. The animations were created by Scientific Animations Without Borders (SAWBO) through funding support from the Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Legume Systems Research.

The training and educational materials are a part of the Legume Systems Innovation Lab project, Transforming the lentil sector in Nepal. A website has been created at https://nepal.sawbo-animations.org/ and the animations can also be viewed on YouTube and through numerous download formats including .3gp for smartphone, .3gplite for cellphone, .mov for broadcast, .mp4 for computer, and .mp4lite for social media platforms like WhatsApp.

The animations focus on good agricultural practices for lentil including new variety adoption, best practices for row planting, weed management, disease and pest management, rice-lentil relay cropping best practices, and post-harvest loss using hermetically sealing bags and locally sourced containers. In addition, a series of six animations detail the creation and management of savings groups. An animation has also been created which details how lentil stakeholders can work together to create multi-stakeholder platforms to strengthen their value chain for greater profit for all.

Each animation has been translated into a minimum of 10 local Nepalese languages and dialects to reach even the most remote farmers. The 10 languages include Bajjika, Bhojpuri, English with Nepalese accent, Gurung, Maithili, Nepali, Newari, Rajbanshi, Tamang, and Tharu.

A scene from the SAWBO animation, "Harvesting Your Lentil Crop."

Lentil is an important crop in Nepal for nutrition, soil health, and as both a staple and export commodity. However, crop yields have become stagnant with the low productivity attributed mainly to stressed environmental conditions and agronomic practices. Lentil produced domestically competes with imports as large legume processors prefer imported lentil due to cost and uniformity. Lentils occupy 60% of the total grain legume area and production in Nepal, making the country the sixth largest producer and fifth largest exporter of lentils. Given that lentil demand has expanded 6.2% over the past ten years, it is estimated that Nepal’s revenue from lentil export could double or even triple if relevant actions are taken to boost cultivated area, productivity, and market integration.

Nepal lentil is among the most nutrient dense in the world however many of the these nutritionally rich varieties do not possess the stress and disease tolerant traits for higher yield potentials. Research indicates that the average age of commercialized lentil varieties is 27 years and that 85% of small holder farmers use seed that is decades old. One goal of the project is to identify varieties that are stress resistant, nutritionally biofortified, high yielding, and consumer preferred and provide strategies for farmer variety adoption.

A closer look into the Nepal lentil seed and market systems will also identify bottlenecks and weak points from seed/varietal availability from the producer level all the way through to legume market and export. A special focus will be made on the varietal nutritional panels and potential advantage for nutrition fortified varieties.

Funding for the lentil project is provided by the USAID Nepal Mission.