KATHMANDU, OCTOBER 7

The Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock Development (MoALD) has started making preparations to conduct a farmers’ survey.

Aiming at identifying the real farmers and conducting a study on the status of the farmers, the ministry has started preparations for the survey. The survey will be conducted across the country with the help of local governments.

As per the ministry, the survey will comprise the details of farmers’ production and produces, loans and grants, facilities provided by the government, including their financial and business status. The ministry expects this survey to help bring new policies and programmes for the development of agriculture sector in the country.

According to the ministry, the programme details have already been forwarded to all the local governments and it has also requested the latter to begin their work as soon as possible. The ministry is also preparing to make a formal announcement regarding this survey very soon.

Holding a meeting today, Agriculture Minister Ghanashyam Bhusal held a discussion with the stakeholders to prepare a framework for the survey.

MoALD has always been criticised for not having proper data and details of the farmers and implementing programmes and projects randomly.

Through this survey, the local governments have also been directed to make arrangements for farmers’ identity cards. The stakeholders have been requesting the MoALD since long to distribute farmers’ identity cards so that the real farmers can be identified and the grants and programmes implemented by the ministry will benefit the real farmers.

The objectives of the ministry’s farmers’ survey include identifying genuine farmers and ensuring their access to all kinds of governmental facilities for the agriculture sector.

Along with preparing a national database of farmers, the ministry will classify the farmers into different categories on the basis of the database.

Agriculture Minister Bhusal has said agriculture sector will be developed as per the slogan of ‘Protective agriculture, certain savings (Samrakchhit krishi, sunischit bachat)’.