According to the Department of Transport Management, registration of tractors and tillers has more than doubled over the past five years.
Government officials say the increasing use of machineries, including tractors and power tillers, in the agriculture sector shows Nepal´s agricultural sector is gradually heading toward mechanization. Mechanization is gaining pace even in hilly areas because of the shortage of workforce, they said. [break]
“Today we can see power tillers even in narrow terraced fields in hilly areas. People are getting rid of oxen and purchasing power tillers as active work force in the country are heading to foreign job destinations in droves,” Tek Prasad Luintel, deputy spokesperson for the Ministry of Agricultural Development (MoAD), told Republica. “Mechanization also increases efficiency in farming as power tillers can till the land, which would have taken whole day for oxen, in just an hour.”
A total of 9,795 tractors and power tillers were registered in different parts of the country in the last fiscal year alone.
The number was only 4,663 five years ago. Figures show more than 50 percent of tractors and power tillers registered in the country since 1990 were registered in the past five years alone.
Declining agriculture productivity and surge in the import of agro-products have become a worrying factor for the government. Country´s agriculture growth slumped to an average of 3.6 percent over the last three years. According to fresh estimates of MoAD, 33 districts in the country are in a food-deficit situation.
In bid to increase agriculture productivity, the government, through the budget, introduced number of incentives for farmers, including grants to purchase power tillers. The government has earmarked Rs 100 million for mechanization in agriculture sector in the current fiscal year.
According to officials, the budget will be used to provide grants to farmers for the purchase of agricultural machineries and tools like tiller, trailer, iron plough in hilly areas and seed drills, planter, combine harvester, disc harrow in Tarai and inner Tarai districts.
While unveiling detailed programs for agriculture sector included in the budget, Minister for Agricultural Development, Tek Bahadur Thapa Gharti, had said the government wanted to attract youths in the agriculture by mechanizing the sector.
To ministry is currently preparing a guideline to distribute the grants assistance which ranges from 25 to 75 percent of the total cost.
This is the first time the government announced programs for agricultural mechanization and commercialization through the budget.
Meanwhile, the ministry is also preparing agricultural mechanization policy with the objective of increasing agricultural productivity, reducing the dependence on manpower, and modernizing commercializing agriculture sector.
According to estimates, over 60 percent of the population is involved in agriculture sector. But the sector contributes only about 39 percent in GDP.
“The policy aims to enhance mechanization in agriculture sector,” said Madhusudan Singh Basnyat, chief of Directorate of Agricultural Engineering under MoAD.
The directorate is planning to conduct a baseline survey on agricultural machineries in a bid to study the use of machineries in agriculture sector across the country.
In the past, local bodies were providing nominal grants to farmers on the purchase of power tillers.
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