KATHMANDU, JULY 17

Paddy plantation has been completed on 60 per cent of the total 1.50 million hectares of arable land used for paddy plantation across the country as of July 12, according to the latest update provided by the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock Development (MoALD) today.

Compared to the same period of last fiscal, this is a decline by 16 percentage points. As per MoALD, paddy plantation had been completed on 76 per cent of arable land in the same period of the previous fiscal.

As per MoALD data, paddy plantation has been completed on 899,337 hectares of arable land across the country so far.

However, during the same period of last year plantation had been carried out on 1.33 million hectares of land.

As per the report compiled by the MoALD, paddy plantation has been completed on 87 per cent of arable land or 155,878.08 hectares in Sudurpaschim Province - the highest among all the provinces. In the same period of last year, paddy plantation was completed over 162,132 hectares of land in the province.

Surprisingly plantation has been carried out on only 39 per cent of arable land or 158,020 hectares in Madhes Province, which is the lowest among the provinces. The progress this year is significantly lower than 69 per cent or 279,761 hectares of land being planted with paddy in the corresponding period of last year.

Likewise, in Bagmati Province and Gandaki Province, paddy plantation has been completed on 78,795 hectares and 79701.25 hectares of land, respectively. Last year during the same period, paddy plantation was completed on 94,044hectares of land in Bagmati Province and 72,223 hectares in Gandaki Province.

The data further show that paddy plantation in Lumbini Province has been completed on 239,277.3 hectares of land while in the corresponding period of last fiscal, plantation was completed on 278,640 hectares of land.

Meanwhile, paddy plantation in Karnali Province so far this year was on 21,894.89 hectares while last year it stood at 31,887 hectares.

Paddy production alone has over 20 per cent contribution to the total agricultural production of Nepal, while the agriculture sector has around 25 per cent contribution to the national gross domestic product.

A version of this article appears in the print on July 19, 2022, of The Himalayan Times.