Nepal is blessed with the land, people and climate to potentially grow most of the cereals, fruits, crops, and vegetables we need. Yet the country today is food-insecure and out-migration of youth is leaving our vast resources fallow. Climate change is adding to the uncertainty. And the country's formal plans and policies have failed to rise to the challenge. Unlike in neighboring India where after the 1960s, land-grant universities and new technologies triggered the birth of high-yield crop varieties, and a full-blown green revolution, Nepal has not yet seen anything comparable.We did try to play catch-up by sending hundreds of young students for undergraduate degrees in Indian universities, many of whom returned and applied what they learned. Indeed, Nepal exported rice to India, Bangladesh and beyond at one point. Over time, however, demand for food outstripped what was produced. Public investment in agriculture has been grossly inadequate and it has hampered productivity. With prolonged energy crisis and remittance-fueled consumption, import of food items is increasing. In recent days, the prime minister has spoken about making Nepal self-sufficient in food within two years. Without programs to modernize agriculture that are actually implementable, no one believes this to be a credible assertion.
Research and production
The agenda of sufficiency has to be grounded on a modern research system with an overhaul of the Nepal Agriculture Research Council (NARC) that forges strong collaboration with the private sector, NGOs and international organizations like the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre (CIMMYT), and the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT). Agriculture is multi-sectoral. Without strong coordination among stakeholders, steered by the National Planning Commission, agriculture will not take off.
Foremost, the two ministries of agriculture and livestock should not even be separate; they must work in concert seamlessly, together with the ministries of irrigation, science and technology, environment and population, and education. Better coordination is also needed among projects funded by development partners, as well as the now segmented constituencies of teaching, research and extension services.
Our large neighbors, China and India, have achieved much and have tons to share. We can adapt their basic research to our needs through exchange of scientists, as well as an ambitious program to send Nepali professionals for training. Our labs need to be better equipped to diagnose problems faced by farmers. District level government offices have to evolve into resource centers.
Nepal was unable to optimally utilize past foreign assistance in this area. For example, the Japan-assisted Janakpur Agricultural Development Project (JADP) provided deep and shallow tube wells of high quality, which were not properly managed. Similarly, horticulture stations set up with Indian assistance await modernization. More recently, the World Bank has supported the Project for Agriculture Commercialization and Trade (PACT). Commercialization is a top priority to make agriculture attractive, but the performance of the project so far is unsatisfactory.
There are several other projects supported by ADB, IFAD and JICA, yet none that is transformational. This is also the time for private sector—banks and entrepreneurs—to engage deeply in agriculture, particularly in the production of seeds and fertilizers, in anticipation of the easing of the energy crisis over the next couple of years.
Policy shifts
In Nepal, pro-poor development policies, by definition, have to start with agriculture, by investing in irrigation, ensuring effective supply of inputs, and targeting subsidies. We must end hunger and malnutrition across geographical and socio-ethnic pockets of poverty. We need to improve soil fertility in the Tarai, encourage high-value exports in the mid-hills, and promote livestock (sheep and goat) in the high mountains. To engage a large number of experts as well as retirees, we need a 'deemed university' in agriculture that works as a research institute and can even award advanced degrees based on field experiments and results.
The challenges of the 21st century also need to be factored in, particularly those posed by climate change and massive outflow of young Nepalis. Climate change accentuates vulnerability in the already fragile ecologies. Precipitation patterns are changing and extreme events in the form of drought, flood, landslide and soil erosion are becoming more frequent. We need to retain some of the migrating workforce not through patriotic chest-thumping but through incentives that translate into decent incomes and lower the opportunity cost of leaving.
The Agriculture Perspective Plan (APP) in operation between 1995 and 2015 has just been succeeded by the Agricultural Development Strategy (ADS) for the next 20 years. The APP did not perform as well as expected because of low investment, particularly in irrigation, and weak coordination among stakeholders. Fertilizers and seeds were never available to farmers in required quantities; both human and financial resources constrained productivity growth. The ADS is expected to remedy some of these failures while augmenting commercialization and competitiveness. However, in the absence of better coordination engineered through improved institutions, the ADS could very well suffer the same fate as the APP of over-expectations and under-delivery.
With the promulgation of the republican constitution, the newly federated states will have to play a much greater role for the implementation of the ADS. Without their wholehearted support the new strategy is bound to disappoint. Yet again, progress on the political front is tied intricately with success in the economic sphere.
Without making agriculture competitive and viable, Nepal's dream of self-sufficiency will remain just that, reminding one of Einstein's dictum that doing more of the same over and over again will not produce a different result. Yet, we have no choice but to persevere and march on, for without a strong agricultural foundation, Nepal's future growth can neither be sustained nor can it be inclusive.
The author is a former Member of the National Planning Commission and a past Executive Director of the Nepal Agriculture Research Council (NARC)
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