Officials at the Ministry of Agriculture and Co-operatives (MoAC) have estimated that production of paddy, which accounts for around 50 percent of the total cereal crop basket, to go down by 500,000 tons to 4.02 million tons this year. Last year, paddy production was recorded at 4.52 million tons, the highest ever in six decades.
"Protracted drought leading to late planting and a five per cent drop in plantation areas compounded by landslide and inundation in paddy fields are the major causes leading the decline in paddy production," Surendra Kumar Subedi, assistant spokesperson of the MoAC told myrepublica.com on Friday.
Key paddy producing districts such as Jhapa, Mahottari, Kailali and Kanchanpur were badly affected by floods and river bank erosion.
"Only 15 districts have reported production of paddy equal to last year and remaining districts witnessed decline," said Subedi after the release of estimated production of summer crops by the MoAC.
Productivity of paddy also dropped to 2716 kg per hectare from 2907 kg per hectare recorded last year.
Paddy plantation area also declined by around 5 percent to 1.48 million hectares as compared to last year.
Given the average farm-gate paddy price that hovers around Rs 1600 per quintal, total worth of paddy production reached close to Rs 65 billion -- around 7 percent of total Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of Rs 960 billion.
Officials said decline in paddy and maize production would further aggravate food security in the country which has been reeling under food deficit of 132,000 tons following the drop in the production of major winter crops -- wheat and barley.
A recent report by UN World Food Program says around 3.7 million Nepalis are facing food deficit due to failure of winter crops after the long spell of drought.
Total food requirement across the country is estimated around 5.5 million tons per year.
A whopping 14.5 percent and 17 percent fall in the production of wheat and barley -- major winter crops --due to long drought and meager snowfall, has already worsened food shortage in remote districts.
Similarly, production of maize -- second major cereal product -- also plunged by 4 percent or 75,000 tons to 1.85 million tons this year. "Drought during plantation season and attack by diseases led to the decline," added Subedi. Maize production area has nominally decreased by 0.03 percent to 875,660 hectares.
However, production of millet rose by 2 percent to 300,000 tons this year from 293,000 tons recorded last year. Officials said productivity of millet however couldn´t go up despite use of better technology, increase in use of fertilizer and rise in production area this year.
Production area of millet edged up by 0.97 percent to 268,473 hectares compared to last year.
prabhakar@myrepublica.com
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