Farmers had hoped that their winter crops, wheat and barley, would fetch attractive prices because of the scarcity in the products brought on by the past winter´s losses and because the Indian government had banned the exporting of wheat to Nepal. How bad were the losses? In an annual crop report recently released by the Ministry of Agriculture and Co-operatives (MoAC), the ministry has stated that the production of wheat this year has dropped 14.5 percent to 1.34 million tons due to the protracted drought and meager snowfall in the hill and mountain districts. Wheat production areas declined by 1.6 percent to 694,000 hectares, from 706,000 hectares last year, and productivity also dropped by 1.3 percent.
The amount of wheat produced in Morang--a major wheat producing district in eastern Nepal--was 7,334 tons this year as compared to 42,322 tons last year, despite the rise in production area by 85 hectares.
Thus the slim hopes that the farmers had of recouping some of their losses, by selling their wheat at higher prices, didn´t seem too far-fetched. But instead, they´ve seen the retail price of wheat go down by over 15 percent in all the markets, from the Eastern to the Far-Western regions.
Traders say that wheat price wouldn´t have slid to the extent that it did if the government hadn´t stopped Nepali wheat from getting exported to Bangladesh. The government took that move to consolidate the supply of food within the country. Thus the farmers haven´t had anything go for them at all.
The farmers--throughout the nation--have had to put up with so much bad luck this year. For example, though most of the wheat farms were irrigated in Bara, Parsa and Rautahat districts, wheat production in those districts saw steep declines. Basu Dev Kafle, planning officer at the District Agriculture Development Office (DADO) in Rautahat, says wheat production in his district declined to 19,184 tons, which was a reduction of 12 percent compared to last year´s production.
The Far-Western region, which was inflicted by both a long drought and insufficient rains during the winter season, also saw declines in wheat production. And this despite the farmers´ increasing the total production area in the region, from 128,400 hectares last year to 150,850 hectares this year. With the weather turning so brutal, the farmers couldn´t produce the amount they ideally would have in the enlarged production areas. Wheat production in the region dropped to 191,701 tons this year from 192,600 tons of last year.
There was one area which was spared the ravages wrought by nature: the Tarai districts in the Mid-Western region produced marginally larger quantities. For example, 43,380 tons of wheat was produced in Banke district, up from 42,557 tons last year. But the rest of the Tarai suffered the same fate as the other badly hit regions.
And with the price trends not going their way, the Nepali farmers who barely made it through a horrible winter must now brace themselves for an equally bleak after-winter selling season.
Wheat Prices
| Region | Last Year | This Year |
| Eastern | Rs 15/kg | Rs 15/kg |
| Central | Rs 18/kg | Rs 15/kg |
| Western | Rs 16/kg | Rs 18/kg |
| Mid-Western | Rs 15/kg | Rs 15/kg |
| Far-Western | Rs 17/kg | Rs 14/kg |
(Inputs from Ajit Tiwari in Biratnagar, Upendra Lamichhane in Birgunj, Ramesh Paudel in Chitwan, Sher Bahadur KC in Butwal,Rudra Khadka in Nepalgunj and Dil Bahadur Chhattyal in Dhangadi.)
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