KATHMANDU, AUGUST 18
Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba has expressed concern about the country facing a situation where food items need to be imported.
PM Deuba rued the inability to tap the country's abundance of potential to produce enough food items by itself.
Addressing a two-day seminar with the theme of 'Situation of food security in Nepal' organised here today jointly by the National Security Council Secretariat and Quarter Master General of the Nepali Army, PM Deuba said, "Although the country has huge potential, importing foodstuffs, including staples such as rice, wheat, corn and vegetables from foreign countries, is a matter of concern. This has also increased the country's trade deficit."
To end this situation, Deuba suggested that there should be access to foods for all Nepali people by producing them in enough volume within the country.
"The country is weak in the world in terms of food production even though more than two-thirds of the country's total population depends on agriculture," he said.
PM Deuba blamed the traditional form of farming, lack of irrigation, fertilisers, hybrid seeds and workforce, land fragmentation, and market and unseasonal rain for the poor state of food production in the country.
"Rice cultivation during the summer and autumn season under the Prime Minister Agriculture Modernisation Project launched by the government can help resolve problems related to food security."
On the occasion, Brigadier General of Nepali Army Krishna Raj Acharya, who is also the assistant coordinator for the NSCS, gave a presentation on the discussions and conclusions taken from working papers presented by the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock Development, the Ministry of Industry, Commerce and Supplies, the National Planning Commission, and the Policy Research Institute.
The session aimed to assess and evaluate the current situation of food security of the country and make recommendations to the government accordingly.
A version of this article appears in the print on August 19, 2022 of The Himalayan Times.
