• TOPICS
KATHMANDU, APRIL 11
At first, I could not grasp how the war in Europe should affect global food supply and prices (THT page 7, Apr 9). We have seen many conflicts, including the long insurgency in our backyard, none of which affected our food supply.
So, I found it somewhat ludicrous that the war between Ukraine and Russia should create a global food problem and price rise. We missed out on World War II, but some of my older Japanese friends used to tell me that they had to carve a single piece of banana to share among their siblings. Could we face such a dire situation this time? Most likely.
Unlike conflicts in the past, the warring duo of Russia and Ukraine are supposedly the world's largest producer of wheat, oats, barley and corn.
Therefore, the 17.1 per cent increase in grain prices should not come as a surprise. The 23.3 per cent jump in vegetable oil is plausible as Ukraine is the largest exporter of sunflower seeds.
But the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal saw a sudden, inexplicable 40 per cent rise in vegetable oil price overnight a couple of years ago during the most peaceful days. The Nepali grocers could not explain the mysterious somersault in oil prices. Is it because of large scale export to India? How would Nepal respond if the food prices surge, which is likely considering that they are no signs of the war ending anytime soon? Wars in recent memory did not affect Nepal too much. Our harvest took care of the people's needs.
That is likely to change. With arable farmland contracting, food production is on the wane, forcing us to import food. If the war drags on, prices will soar, exerting pressure on us. A grocer confided that food should disappear from the shop shelves in a month. But he attributes this to our depleting dollar reserve more than the war. Meanwhile, Nepali punks brag: "Nepal's economy won't face a crisis like Sri Lanka, THT page 7, Apr 9." A Marxist Leninist former finance minister often emerges on Facebook with a smirk on his face claiming had the parliament not ratified the MCC grant, we would have become the next Sri Lanka.
Laughing at a neighbour's adversity, is he? It would only take a few wrong steps to plunge us into the financial abyss.
If a maritime country like Sri Lanka, with one hundred per cent literacy and one of the oldest community broadcasting radios, can fall into the economic whirlpool, Nepal's situation is no less precarious, as is clear from the one-sided tilt on the BOP scale. So, stop poking fun at Sri Lanka and wipe those smirks off the faces.
With continued reference to Sir Lanka from all quarters here, it would not surprise some of us if Gotabaya tells the Nepalis to mind their own business.
A version of this article appears in the print on April 12, 2022, of The Himalayan Times.
