The Ministry of Agriculture Development (MoAD) on Monday stated that total food surplus will decline to 408,000 tons this year from 8 86,000 tons recorded in the last fiscal year. [break]
“Decline in production of major crops this year is the main reason behind massive drop in food surplus,” Hem Raj Regmi, senior statistics officer at the MoAD, told Republica on Monday.
Prabhakar Pathak, spokesperson for the ministry, said total food available for consumption in the form of milled rice and flour will remain at 5.64 million tons this year.
Around 5.24 million tons of food is needed to feed an estimated 27.5 million people whose per capita consumption has been recorded at 191 kg.
“We have estimated that the country will face deficit of 900,000 tons of rice. However, we will enjoy surplus of 262,000 tons of maize and 1.05 million tons of wheat,” said Pathak.
Number of districts facing food deficit has increased by six to 33 this year.
“Number of food deficit districts has increased to 33 in this fiscal year due to massive drop in cereal crop production,” Regmi said.
Total production of paddy, maize, wheat, millet, barley and buckwheat combined stood at 8.73 million tons this year. Of the total production, post harvest loss is estimated at 800,000 tons. Similarly, 175,000 tons need to be set aside as seeds and 390,000 tons as livestock feeds.
According to MoAD, production of paddy and maize declined by 11.3 percent and 8.3 percent to 4.5 million tons and 1.99 million tons, respectively in this fiscal year. Similarly, production of millet also went down by 3 percent to 305,588 tons. However, production of wheat, barley and buckwheat increased by 2 percent, 6 percent and 0.3 percent, respectively to 1.88 million tons, 36973 tons and 10,056 tons.
The MoAD´s data shows that some major paddy producing districts, which had enjoyed food surplus last year, have are suffered deficit this year. Panchthar, Udayapur, Saptari, Siraha, Kavre, Makawanpur, Sarlahi, Dolpa and Rukum, which had enjoyed food surplus last year, have become food deficit district this year. However, Manang and Doti, which had suffered food deficit last year, are enjoying food surplus this year.
According to officials, Tarai, the food basket of the county, is expected to see food production drop to 429,238 from 777,600 recorded last year. Mountain and hilly regions, which had reported food surplus of 15,774 tons and 92,933 tons last year, are suffering deficit of 15,767 tons and 5,029 tons respectively in this fiscal year.
Slug: top food deficit districts
Districts Deficit (in tons)
Kathmandu 338,089
Sarlahi 72,283
Lalitpur 63, 522
Rautahat 56,883
Saptari 55,371
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