Nepal launches 10-yr-plan to cut vegetable imports from India
Kathmandu, Jan 23 (PTI) Nepal
government has launched a 10-year-plan to cut dependence on vegetable imports
from India and make the land-locked country self-reliant in food. Vegetable
imports from India have continued to increase even despite the far-western
region seeing a rise in commercial vegetable farming, a local media report has
said. According to the report, the
region imports vegetables worth 55 billion rupees every year from India.
Exports volume, however, was
negligible.
Potatoes worth 370 million rupees
was imported annually. Green vegetable imports stand at 180 million rupees,
according to the Regional Plant Quarantine at Gadda Chauki - the second
important border trading point with India after Birgunj. According to District Agriculture Development
Office (DADO), vegetable is cultivated on 4,450 hectares in Kanchanpur and the
output is 56,000 metric tonnes annually.
Belauri, Krishnapur, Jhalari,
Mahendranagar and Mahakali are some of the major vegetable producing areas in
Nepal. However, the production barely meets the local demand.
India exports around 25,000
metric tonnes of vegetables annually, the report in The Kathmandu Post said. "More than 50 per cent of the imports is
consumed in Kanchanpur district," said Yagya Raj Joshi, senior
agricultural development officer at DADO. "Reaming is consumed in Banke,
Kailai and other hilly districts of the far west." In a bid to decrease reliance on imports, the
government has launched a 10-year scheme to boost domestic production.
Starting this fiscal year, the
Prime Minister Agriculture Modernisation Project has envisioned adopting modern
farm techniques to boost productivity, and making the country self-reliant in
food, it said.
The government has aimed at
achieving self-sufficiency in wheat and vegetables by this fiscal year, and in
paddy and potato in two years.
It has targeted making the
country self-sufficient in maize and fish by the next three years, and in
fruits like bananas, papaya and litchi by four years. By its end, the project
envisages becoming self-sufficient in fruits like kiwi, apple and orange.
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