Janak Raj Sapkota: Paddy production : not enough for plate

Paddy production : not enough for plate

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Janakraj Sapkota/ Kathmandu

National Rice Plantation Day on 29 June at Kathmandu seemed fascinating; not only young people but the policy makers went down to the muddy paddy fields with a slogan, “Increase in Rice Production: Sustainable National Economy”. Entire country celebrated the day; pictures of people in the paddy field playing mud, spotted in the social networking sites, speak volumes.

However, the rosy picture visible in the surface does not give any inkling about the dismal facts that characterize the hindsight. Though the government has been enthusiastically investing every year only for the maximum output, the production of rice is not even satisfactory.

The population of Nepal back in 1971 AD . was 13.6 million. According to the census of 2011 AD, the country's population has doubled to 25.8 million. Even though population has doubled, production of rice, the main staple food, has not been very fascinating. Paddy field is increasing every year, though. During the past 65 years, there used to be 1.295 million hectors for rice plantation and now paddy field covers almost 1.420570 million hectors.

Take the statistics. 63 years ago, Nepal had 19 quintal (1 quintal=100kg) of the rice production per hector and now it has increased to 31 quintal 71 kg per hector. The data projects that only 21 kg of increment per hectare annually, whereas the population in this period of time has doubled. Compare this to the data of the neighboring country China, the future of food-production in Nepal looks bleak. China produces 10 to 12 tons of rice per hector annually. Hari krishana Upadhya, President of Center for Environment and Agriculture Policy Research, Extension and Development (CEAPRED), says, "The national population growth and increased urbanization should have led the production of rice to double. It is depressing that the production rate is very low."

Paddy specialist/expert Bholaman Basnet doesn’t see any rationale on blaming the government-investment alone. "Now it's the time we should look for cause." In the past decade, though the use of hybrid seeds and new improved varieties was scaled up, it did not contribute to satisfactory yield.

Hybrid seeds of rice contribute to nearly 93 percent of the total yield. Improved varieties have been significantly selling well in the Nepali market. In 1966 AD, 36 tons hybrid seeds was sold, whereas, last year the sales have markedly gone up to 4211 tons.

The fiscal year 2010/11 in Nepal was a very important and significant year to the rice researchers. The country recorded highest production of rice grains during this period, 5.72249 million metric tons, which contributed to 4.6 percent GDP growth. But, following fiscal year 2011/12 the production declined to 4.53503 million tons. Low paddy-yield brought GDP growth down to 3.6 percent. Basnet says, "The year, which has the satisfactory production because of favorable rainfall and weather condition, does not look good. Because every year the country's rice dependency is increasing and it is directly related to the economic growth."

According to the data produced by Agriculture ministry, the country bore the brunt of food-shortage for 15 years out of last 25 years in Nepal's history. Agro researchers say, "Food shortage is directly proportional to rice production." As per the government unofficial estimate per-capita per year food grain consumption is 191 kg. If even every Nepali takes only single meal a day, rice contributes to 90 kg on per-capita food grain consumption. However, there are very few families who hardly manage to have a single meal a day. This shows the direct relationship between food security and rice production. Hemraj Regmi, a Senior Agro Economist at Ministry of Agriculture, says, "Per-capita rice consumption per year stands at 122kg".

On the other hand, every year government is investing billions of rupees in agriculture, which doesn't include the private sectors and farmers' investment. However, Chairman of CEAPRED, Harikrishana Upadhaya is not satisfied with the government-expenditure in the area. "The total contribution of agriculture is 1.5 percent to national economy, so the government should triple the investment."

Senior assistant scientist of International Rice Research Center, Bhavparsad Tripathi blames the government and the government policies for the lack of improvement in the production of rice. He says, "It's not due to lack of recourses, but it is due to the lack of visionary government- policies."

Despite heavy urbanization and population growth, the area of paddy field has increased over the years. But the irrigation system has not been developed to meet the target. Still 45 percent of paddy field is dependent on rainwater for irrigation. Not having enough rain in the monsoon will deplorably affect the production of rice. Senior Agro Economist Regmi says, "Every year deep boring is done across the country for a paddy field irrigation, but those are being utilized for other crops other than paddy."

Of the total arable land, 55 percent have the access to irrigation, out of which, 20 percent has round the year facility, says Upadhaya. This shows that both the Nepal lags behind in irrigation and production of rice.

Government-spending on irrigation rose from mere 9.2 million rupees to 8 billion 652.1 million over the period 1974/75 to 2009/10. Upadhaya says, "If this situation continues, food dependency on other countries is going to increase by leaps and bounds, inevitably.”

Let alone others, the representatives of International Paddy Research Centre do not trust the statistics of irrigated land produced by the Ministry of Agriculture. According to Tripathi, the assistant scientist of the centre, only 30 percent of arable lands have access to irrigation facility so far.

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Paddy production : not enough for plate

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