However, the availability level is far lower than the 400 grams per head per day prescribed by the UN’s World Health Organization. [break]
Officials said that with the increasing volume of production and imports, mainly from India, the availability has risen remarkably.
With increasing use of advance technology coupled with increasing acrage in cultivation, the production of vegetables has almost doubled over eight years, officials said.
The Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives (MoAC) has stated that production of vegetables shot up to 2.53 million tons during fiscal year 2007/08 from 1.48 million tons across the country during fiscal year 1999/00.
Imports of vegetables also rose from Rs 640 million worth in 2003/04 to Rs 1.21 billion in 2007/08. The total import accounts for less than 2 percent of total domestic production, added the ministry.
“Productivity of vegetables increased 9.99 tons to 12.2 tons per hectare during the period,” Dr. Hari Dahal, spokesperson of MoAC, said releasing the vegetables production status report for the country.
The area of production rose by 40 percent to 0.20 million hectares over the period.
Dahal claimed that easy access to the market, higher income than in other occupations and lucrative prices have encouraged farmers to take up vegetable farming. He said, however, that a crunch in improved vegetable seeds has hampered production and encouraged the use of substandard seeds from other countries.
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