25-Aug-2013
Though food surplus stood at over 400,000 tons in fiscal year 2012/13, Nepal´s rice imports doubled during the year. Nepal imported rice worth Rs 8.45 billion during the review period.
Nepal mainly imports rice from India.Despite drop in cereal production by 7.6 percent to 8.74 million tons compared to last year´s total output, the Ministry of Agriculture Development (MoAD) has estimated that country enjoyed surplus of 408,000 tons of food in 2012/13. In 2011/12, Nepal had enjoyed food surplus of 886,000 tons.
“Technically we are in a food surplus situation. But the increasing consumption of rice means we are facing deficit of rice,” Prabhakar Pathak, spokesperson for the MoAD, told Republica on Sunday. “We, however, enjoy surplus on maize and wheat.”
According to Pathak, Nepal faces deficit of 900,000 tons of rice even though it has 262,000 tons and 1.05 million tons of rice and wheat, respectively, in surplus.
Out of total per capita food consumption of 191 kg, rice covers more than 122 kg, followed by maize (41 kg), wheat (17 kg), millet (9 kg) and other foods (2 percent).
According to MoAD estimates, total requirement of food for people across the country stands at 5.24 million tons a year.
“Surplus in overall cereal crops can´t contain imports of rice in the country,” said Pathak.
However, rice expert Bhola Man Singh Basnet said consumption of food might have gone up sharply from the estimated per capita consumption of 191 kg, leading to increasing import of rice. “Increasing import of rice at a time when the country is in a food surplus situation means our calculation on food consumption is wrong,” said Basnet.
Total production of paddy, wheat, maize, millet, barley and buckwheat combined reached 8.74 million tons this year, down from 9.46 million tons recorded last year. Production of paddy, which makes up 52 percent of the total crop production, dropped by 11.3 percent to 4.50 million tons, thanks to drop in plantation area by about 110,000 hectares.
Similarly, production of maize, which makes up for 23 percent of the total crop production, declined by 8.3 percent to 1.99 million tons.
The MoAD had recently put eight more districts, including five in Tarai, in the list of food deficit districts. Saptari, Siraha, Mahottari, Sarlahi and Rautahat in Tarai, which are among the key producers of paddy, joined the list of food deficit districts this year. Similarly three hilly districts -- Udayapur, Panchathar and Kaski - entered the list for the first time. With this, the number of districts with food deficit has reached 33 compared to 27 of 2011/12.
According to data compiled by Nepal Rastra Bank, import of vegetables jumped by a whopping 75.7 percent to Rs 4.54 billion in 2012/13. Commercialization of vegetable production has been limited to handful of districts that resulted in growing supply deficit and subsequent rise in its import. Imports of fruits and live animals during the review year rose by 52.1 percent and 137.9 percent, respectively, to Rs 1.3 billion and Rs 1 billion respectively. Similarly, Nepal imported tea and tobacco worth Rs 50 million and Rs 2.06 billion during the year, up by 72 percent and 7.9 percent compared to the amount recorded in the last fiscal year.
Source:- myrepublica.com
No comments:
Post a Comment