Seed Companies in Nepal: Planting Windows, Lot Validity and Season-End Returns

Seed has a feature no other agro input shares: it is only useful inside a planting window. A packet that reaches the dealer a week late is a packet nobody buys, and unsold stock loses value as its validity date approaches. Nepal makes this harder: altitude, monsoon timing and road access shift the window from one district to the next. For a seed company or distributor, the year is not one season but a sequence of short ones, and each needs the right lot at the right dealer before farmers come asking. This guide is built around that calendar.

The planting calendar is your sales calendar

The windows below are rough and vary by altitude, region and year. Use your own sales history and local agriculture office guidance to set real dates for each market centre.

Crop group	Approx. sowing window	Sales work that must be finished before
Spring and summer vegetables	Magh to Chaitra	Dealer orders booked, stock at regional branches
Maize	Falgun to Baisakh (earlier in the Terai)	Hill dealers stocked before roads get busy
Paddy	Seedbeds Jestha to Asar	Lots positioned, credit decided, demos visited
Winter vegetables	Bhadra to Kartik	Pre-season dealer round complete
Wheat and lentils	Kartik to Mangsir	Bags dispatched, programme orders confirmed

Read the table backwards. The sales work for each window starts six to ten weeks earlier, because transport to hill districts, dealer credit decisions and farmer meetings all take time. A company that reacts once the window opens is already late.

Before the window: positioning lots

Most of the year's result is decided before the first farmer buys.

Branches. Set up central and regional stores as branches in gamitrack. Each has its own stock levels, low-stock alerts and near-expiry view.

Low-stock levels by branch. Base them on last season's orders for that branch's dealers. When a regional branch falls below its level, the alert tells you which variety to move.

Transfers. Move lots to the branches that serve the busiest markets before demand starts. Transfers are recorded as stock movements, so the trail of each lot stays intact.

Pre-season dealer round. Officers visit every dealer on a planned route with ordered stops. Each visit is GPS-verified against the dealer's geofence, with a photo, and visits outside the geofence, too short or without a photo are flagged for the manager. Book orders during the visit; if a dealer does not order, record why. A list of dealers who said "waiting to see demand" is your follow-up list.

Farmer meetings and demo plots. Officers' travel for meetings is submitted as a field expense claim and approved by a manager, so the cost of building demand is visible next to the orders it produced.

Lots and validity: every packet has a history

A germination complaint is only solvable if you know the lot. Make lot control boring and automatic:

• Record each lot at receipt as a batch with its validity or expiry date.
• Dispatch the shortest validity first from each branch.
• Print lot references clearly on packets and bags.
• Check the near-expiry view weekly during and after each window.

Because stock movements are append-only, the history of a lot (received, transferred, dispatched, returned) cannot be rewritten after the fact. When a dealer calls about a complaint, you can show which branch the lot came from and when.

During the window: daily rhythm

Once farmers start buying, the job changes from planning to replenishing.

• Review new orders and low-stock alerts every day.
• Dispatch is all-or-nothing per order, so a partly available order does not leave half-filled; split it deliberately if needed.
• Dealers can order directly through the dealer app and see what was dispatched.
• Delivery staff record proof of delivery with GPS, a photo and the receiver's name, and far deliveries are flagged.

Cooperatives and programme orders

Cooperatives, farmer groups and project programmes often buy in bulk against their own approvals and timelines. Give them their own party type and price list, record each order with the exact variety and quantity, and keep their payment terms separate from dealer terms so the aging report does not mix the two. Confirm their delivery dates early, because a programme order arriving after the window helps nobody.

After the window: the returns question

Leftover seed at dealers is the trade's biggest argument. Decide your policy before the season and write it down. The common options look like this:

Policy	Good for	Watch out for
Full take-back within a set period	New dealers, new varieties	Over-ordering, since the risk is all yours
Partial take-back (a capped share)	Established dealers	Needs clear records of what each dealer bought
Carry-over to next season	Varieties with long validity	Lot age at next season's sale
No returns, scheme credit instead	Strong, high-turnover dealers	Dealers may refuse to stock risky varieties

Whatever you choose, run it through records rather than phone calls. Ask each dealer for a monthly stock report near the end of the window; gamitrack compares expected closing stock with their count and shows the variance by SKU. Returns are raised with a reason, reviewed, and approved into a branch with a credit note. A return photo cannot be reused on a second claim.

Credit tied to the season

Pre-season supply is often on credit, and collection drifts once the window closes. Set the terms when you dispatch, not afterwards. In gamitrack, payment due days are counted from dispatch, payments by cash, eSewa, Khalti, Fonepay, bank or cheque are allocated to the oldest invoices first, and the ledger and aging show which dealers are late. Weekly collection plans give each officer a list of dealers to visit, starting with the largest overdue balances. Dealer targets can be set quarterly or annually on the Nepali fiscal year, and officer targets monthly with daily pace, by amount or kg.

A worked scenario

Suppose that before the paddy window a manager sees the low-stock alert for one hybrid variety at a Terai branch, and transfers lots from the central store. Officers complete the dealer round two weeks before seedbeds. After the window, dealer stock reports show one distributor holding far more than expected. Under the written partial take-back policy, part comes back as an approved return and the rest is moved to a branch serving a later-planting hill market. The figures are hypothetical; the point is that every step was recorded as it happened.

Questions for the post-season review

• Did we dispatch the shortest-validity lots first?
• Which dealers ordered early, and did they receive a visit before the season?
• Which market centres did we not visit, and what did that cost?
• Which varieties came back most, and was the cause demand, packet size or lot age?
• Were credit decisions made before dispatch, or after the first overdue?

Your first season on gamitrack

• Ten weeks before the window: create SKUs by crop, variety and packet or bag size; receive current lots as batches with validity dates.
• Eight weeks before: enter dealers with locations, price lists and opening balances; write the returns policy.
• Six weeks before: build dealer routes per market centre and start the pre-season round.
• During the window: daily review of orders, low-stock alerts and transfers.
• After the window: dealer stock reports, returns under the policy, and a collection plan.

Related reading and next step

Related reading: fertiliser dealer management, pesticide and crop protection distribution and the agro inputs industry page.

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