KATHMANDU, DECEMBER 9

The Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock Development (MoALD) has achieved a total of 75 per cent progress in the first four months of the current fiscal year.

According to the ministry, it has achieved 73 per cent progress in recurrent expenditure while 27 per cent progress in capital expenditure.

According to MoALD, it worked on implementation of Prime Minister’s Agriculture Modernisation Project, development of software to list farmers, export of ghee to Japan and Gulf countries, development of animal vaccines, implementation of trademark of Orthodox tea, among others, during the review period.

The ministry has stated that 12.2 million doses of vaccine have been produced in the last four months to fight against livestock diseases.

Similarly, work has begun to prepare detailed project report for the construction of integrated agricultural produce market at several local levels.

The ministry has stated that it is preparing to send a directive to the Cabinet to give subsidy to the farmers during distribution of improved seeds. During the first quadrimester, the ministry also approved organic agriculture promotion project for 10 local governments.

The ministry has mentioned that field verification was done for evaluation of 802 applications for value chain matching project under the Nepal Livestock Sector Innovation Project.

The MoALD claims that significant progress has been made in management and policy efforts in the first four months of the current fiscal. As per the ministry, a preliminary draft has been prepared for the revision of National Agriculture Policy.

Similarly, a bill is being drafted for the Agriculture Act, while the ministry has already prepared a bill for Right to Food and Food Sovereignty Regulation.

The ministry has submitted a bill to amend the Seed Act to the Parliament for discussion, while it is preparing a concept paper for the formulation of Animal Welfare Act. The ministry has also considered the issuance of Directive to Purchase Paddy at Minimum Support Price, as one of its achievements of this fiscal year.

Amid this, MoALD also issued Fertiliser Distribution Management Guideline.

The ministry has further stated that it distributed subsidy amount to the sugarcane farmers on time this year.

However, the sugarcane farmers are still not getting their due payments from the mills. Sugarcane Farmers Struggle Committee announced today that they will begin their protest again from December 13. Accusing the government of not keeping its promise of recovering payments owed to them, the committee has stated that they will begin their protest from Maitighar Mandala. Farmers are still to recover more than Rs 520 million from the sugar mills.