KQATHMANDU: fficials at the Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives (MoAC) today urged agriculture experts to bring out the practical and implemental policies to develop agriculture sector in the country.

Noting that arable land is fast disappearing due to urbanisation, they also underscored the

need to give priority to paddy production for food security.

Speaking at a policy meeting on 'Managing Rice Landscapes in Marginal Uplands for Household Food Security and Environment Sustainability Project' organised here today, Shankar Prasad Pandey, secretary at the MoAC, said the government was ready to accept the policies that were practical and implemental at grass roots level.

"If we come up with practical plans for the people, they would be happy and be assured that the government was doing something for them," he added.

He also said there was a need to come up with technologies so that paddy plantation can cope with the problems of drought and irrigation.

Pandey also said the impacts of climate change and global warming had completely changed the calendar of cultivation in the country.

Hari Dahal, joint secretary at the MoAC, said the paddy plantation was suffering because of lack of rainfall and irrigation facility.

"If the situation continued, the crop would extinct soon," he added. Dahal also said yields from paddy cultivation had reduced by 20 per cent in the last 12 years, due to urbanisation.

"If the production continued to decline, it would make very less contribution to national gross domestic product. The government should take the issue seriously and make more investment in the sector," he added.

Bhola Man Singh Basnet, a senior agricultural scientist, said, "We received around 4.5 million tons of rice worth Rs 67 billion last year."

Basnet also reiterated that there was a need to give priority to paddy plantation to improve the situation of food security in the country.

The project is being implemented in three districts — Lamjung, Tanahun and Gorkha. It began in 2005 and will end in September, 2009.

The project is proving beneficial mainly in making surplus paddy seeds from the community seed producers' groups.

Marginalised communities also are getting benefit from the project through intercropping and multicropping in the same paddy field.