6. The Nepal Agricultural Research Council (NARC)

6.1 History and Structure of NARC
The government-funded Nepal Agricultural Research Council (NARC) is the main autonomous agricultural research institution in Nepal, created in 1991 with strong encouragement from a key funder of agricultural research and extension - USAID. It employs some 350 scientists and over 200 technical officers. NARC has four regional agricultural research stations and some 18 agricultural research stations across the country.

Constitutionally NARC operates independently of the Ministry of Agriculture, although in practice the two work closely together with the Minister of Agriculture presiding over NARC's ruling body. Before 1991, Agricultural Research and Extension used to both be located under the Ministry of Agriculture. Many argue that less priority is given to development-oriented research since the separation of research and extension in 1991.
NARC's mission includes:

• conducting research on problems in the agricultural sector;
• providing appropriate technologies to farmers and other clients to raise agricultural production and productivity, thus contributing towards improving the standard of living of the Nepalese population.

There is a long history of substantial donor support to the structures and systems of NARC. USAID has been one of the major donors supporting agricultural research in Nepal over several decades It provided seven years of intensive technical support to NARC under the Agricultural Technology and Support Project (ATSP) with the aim of strengthening the organisation's ability to generate new technologies and transfer them to farmers by means of improved management systems. The World Bank and Asian Development Bank have provided strong support to research management and research-extension linkages - with the World Bank currently funding an Agricultural Research and Extension Project (AREP), which supports NARC research in the terai, two NARC hill stations (ARS Paripatle (citrus) in Eastern Region and ARS Bandipur (Goat) in Western Region. AREP also supports NARC linkages with extension.

Many argue that a fundamental problem for NARC developing a consistent and strategic approach to development-oriented research lies in NARC having no effective strategy as an institution. Despite the existence of numerous policy and strategy documents - often carried out with donor support - there is a weakness in implementing decisions that change institutional rules and practices. This is perhaps because these strategy documents tended to be required (as with the World Bank / AREP) in order to gain donor funding rather than strategies owned by the NARC. This makes it difficult to achieve institutional changes that support livelihoods-oriented research.

Hill research and poverty reduction are not seen as NARC priorities as compared with the more populated and productive lowlands (terai). There is little apparent interest in devoting significant resources to hill research or focusing research on the poorest farmers. For example, NARC has only 9 scientists in the West and Midwest Regions of the country - some of the poorest and remotest areas. The majority of NARC research scientists and staff are based in the centre (Khumaltar in Kathmandu) and as careers progress, scientists tend to move from field locations to the centre. Senior scientists are relatively cut off from the work carried out by scientists in stations and when they do visit researchers, they do not tend to give technical guidance or take an interest in the technical aspects of the project. Thus, those making decisions on resources are seen not to be responding to the practical needs of scientists in the stations, and addressing the needs of the poorest is not high on NARC's present agenda.