Madan Thapa

Mr. Thapa, former joint secretary of the Ministry of Agricultural Development, Government of Nepal, has more than 33 years of experience in research, extension, policy analysis, program design, planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of agricultural activities. He has worked with various organizations and supervised many staff while working in Seed Quality Control Centre and Department of Agriculture as Chief /Deputy Director General. Before this, He served as member secretary in National Farmers’ Commission, and as chief of various organizations such as District Agriculture Development Offices, Agricultural Training Centers, Seed Quality Control Center and Crop Development Directorate. He has contributed to formulate seed sector policy, strategy and regulations of agriculture. He was quite successful in formation, management and mobilization farmers’ groups and Local Resource Person (LRP) for the effective utilization of natural resource and input management. Mr. Thapa is the cofounder of both District Level Seed Self Sufficiency Program (DISSPRO) 1999 and National Seed Vision (2013-2025). The contribution of DISSPRO helped to emerge community seed producers’ group and converted into seed co-operatives and finally seed companies in private sector. They are producing significant quantities of seeds of agricultural commodities in the country. Private sectors developed their professionalism on seed business due to National Seed Vision. Both these seed development documents gear up Seed Replacement Rate (SRR) of cereals, pulses, oil seed, vegetables and finally contributed to food security. He established truthful labeling system on the produced, seeds for selling which was encouraging results among seed entrepreneurs (farmers group, cooperatives and private seed company) throughout the country for seed quality assurance. Worked as screening of research projects of NARC, IRRI, CIMMYT/HMRP, IWRMP, RISMFP, PACT and NARDF are some of the evidences of his experiences and knowledge in agricultural project. He is currently contributing as a specialist member of management committee of Specialization Research Center, Gandaki province under Nepal Academy of Science and Technology (NAST). The team has launched a comprehensive project focused on a sustainable "Mountain Green Economy" in Gandaki Province. Research on sustainable management of wild mushrooms, control of invasive alien plant species (IAPS), and mitigation of human-monkey conflicts are being carried out since last year. Mr. Thapa has received a Master Degree in NRMA (specialized in Sustainable Agriculture) from ITC, the Netherlands. He has also received several professional and managerial trainings from Nepal, Japan, Philippines and UK. He has also edited journals of agronomy and environmental science. He has published over 20 articles and research papers in national/international journals magazine and newspapers. He has extensively visited India, Bangladesh, China, Thailand, Philippines, Japan, Netherland and Australia.