Kathmandu, Feb. 3: It is being widely felt that there is a need of capable and dynamic   farmers groups for development of  agriculture and rural areas in Nepal.

The need  for such farmers groups and development programmes should come spontaneously and that the government should only  lend a necessary help to the programmes.

The two-day worksop on Transformation of  Rural Asia: Lessons for Nepal organised under the joint auspices of the Ministry of Agriculture, the Asian Development Bank (adb) and the Food and Agriculture Organisation (fao) has pointed out to the need of introducing programmes with  the concept of “For The  Farmers by the Farmers.”

The seminar has recommended that reform measures have to be moved forward as the existing technology is inadequate for the development of  agriculture and   rural areas, and to bring products  befitting  the competitive market at low cost.

The seminar has also recommended that coordination has to be increased between the government, the non-governmental organizations and the private sector to develop them to compliment each other.

It has also stressed the need to find markets in the European Union, the Middle-East, Japan, East Asia and China to  avoid  the problems caused by the open border.

The seminar came to the conclusion that investment should be made in   irrigation, road, electricity, market, agriculture and processing industry for the development of agriculture and rural areas and to attract private sector participation in the possible sectors.

The seminar has also recommended that development of agriculture, rural development areas and the rural financial market in Asia should be considered in an integrated manner.

Today’s programme was inaugurated by former governor of the Nepal Rastra Bank   Ganesh  Bahadur Thapa.

Dr. Nimal Fernando  of the Asian Development Bank presented a working paper on the experience of  Asian countries  on the rural financial markets and Dr. Harihar Dev Pant, Dr. Biswombhar Pyakurel, Ramesh Poudel and Ashok Sharma presented working papers on the experiences of Nepal in this region.