KATHMANDU, JANUARY 28
The Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock Development (MoALD) is all set to begin a farmers' listing campaign from mid-February.
Even as more than 50 per cent of Nepali population is involved in the agriculture sector, the government still does not have proper data on farmers. This in turn has dented the efficacy of government's programmes and projects as they fail to benefit genuine farmers.
Thus, aiming at identifying the real farmers and maintain their records, the ministry is preparing to list the farmers across the country, said MoALD Secretary Yogendra Kumar.
"Currently we have been providing training and other related technical knowledge to the officials from local government," he said, "Other required preparations are also ongoing."
As the preparation is in the final phase, Karki said that the counting will begin from mid-February. The listing of farmers is expected to help the government to set programmes and projects in the agriculture sector, he said.
He further added that most of the projects of the government have been unable to yield expected results in lack of exact numbers of farmers.
"Mediators and people posing as farmers have been taking advantage of the farmers' grants and other governmental facilities for a long time," he said, "Thus, with this census we believe that we will be able to execute our programmes more scientifically and for betterment of farmers."
The ministry has been stating that the farmers' counting will also aid in government's projects of classifying farmers and distributing farmers' identity cards.
Newly-appointed Agriculture Minister Padma Aryal has also said that her top priority is to determine the actual number of farmers in the country, classify them and distribute farmers' identity cards.
