The fruit and nut farming loan must directly reach those who want to engage in it on a commercial scale
Nepal's hilly and mountainous regions are suitable for horticulture because of their climatic conditions.
Some of the fruits and nuts can be grown in the hilly areas while others, such as apples, can be grown in the mountainous areas. There is no difficulty in finding a market within the country as most of the hilly and mountainous districts have access to rural roads and communications. Demand for fruits and nuts is growing in the country because of rapid urbanisation, rising national wealth, improved knowledge about nutrition and tourism. However, a large number of farmers have abandoned farming and shifted to other employment opportunities or relying on remittances from abroad. Therefore, large swathes of land, which used to be cultivated some decades ago, have now been left untilled due to lack of workforce, no incentives from the government, expertise, knowledge and, more than that, no profit from farming, which has also become costly day-by day.
The government and economists always emphasise the importance of food security and food sovereignty, but this is never translated into action when it comes to implanting the policies.
Amidst this backdrop, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) has approved $70 million in financing to improve the livelihood and climate resilience of the horticulture farmers in the hilly and mountainous areas of five provinces. The project expects to boost the productivity of 30,000 farmer households in the five provinces through the development of around 10,000 hectares of climate-resilient fruit and nut orchards. It aims to provide partial grants to the farmers and cooperatives to bear the investment cost while a credit guarantee fund will be established for the farmers who lack collateral to access formal rural finance.
The government has already announced 2016-2026 as the Fruit Decade. But it has failed to achieve its goal of making the country self-reliant in it. The ADB scheme should help achieve the goal.
One thing the ADB, Nepal government and the policy-makers should bear in mind is that nobody will be taking up farming – fruit or nut farming also included – unless they see economic prospects in it.
Fruits and nut farming should be developed on a commercial level for which the farmer(s) must possess a huge plot of land, expertise, technical knowhow and access to the market. The existing law of the land bars a person from holding more than 75 ropanis of land in the hilly regions. If fruits and nut farming were to be developed on a commercial scale, farmer(s) or cooperatives should be allowed to hold as much land as they need for specific fruits or nut farming. The Ministry of Agriculture should also provide scientific database to agro-firms or farmers, who want engage in fruits and nut farming in areas where commercial farming is possible. The ADB's plan to engage the cooperatives in fruits and nut farming is praiseworthy. However, almost all the cooperatives operating in the country are not involved in the productive sector. The most important thing is to directly provide the fund to the targeted communities so that they could take benefit from it. But sad to say, a large part of such funds are misused within the four walls of Singha Durbar on non-agriculture heads.
Shortage of test kits
Despite the efforts at the local level, dengue has not been brought under control and is spreading rapidly across the country. This has been made all the worse by the spread of scrub typhus and Japanese encephalitis simultaneously in certain districts. All three diseases show similar symptoms, namely high fever, headache and body ache, although unlike the other two, scrub typhus is spread by the bite of infected larval mites. Diagnosis of dengue and scrub typhus is, however, being hampered by a shortage of test kits in the hospitals. Since patients visit a hospital only when the disease is really severe, a shortage of diagnostic kits could make treatment difficult.
Both the provincial and local level governments must put their acts together to bring the viral and bacterial diseases under control. The best way to keep dengue, Japanese encephalitis and scrub typhus infection at bay is to prevent one from being bitten by either an infected mosquito or mite. An awareness and sanitation campaign must be launched in both rural and urban centres to destroy the larvae of both mosquitoes and mites. Using mosquito nets, wearing long-sleeved clothes and avoiding areas with lots of vegetation would help greatly.
A version of this article appears in the print on September 16, 2022 of The Himalayan Times.