Gap Widens in Agricultural Target

The holistic development of Agriculture sector is national need in the context of role of agriculture sector, mostly in providing employment to rural farmers, providing food security to nation and make agriculture sector able to compete with promotion of agri-business and take advantage of diversified and comparative advantages of the agricultural products. Agriculture sector has been given high priority since fifth five year long plan of the Government of Nepal. The main role of Ministry of Agricultural Development is to develop and implement agricultural policies and programmes and ensure effective implementation of those through regular monitoring and evaluation. The major result of which is visible through agricultural production status of the nation. Thus, agricultural production target and its achievement has important role in defining the progress of nation in agricultural sector. All the activities of ministry are targeted for increased production, improved food security status and improved livelihood status of people.

Agriculture and Food Security is one of the prioritized sectors of government in Nepal.  Two third of nationals in Nepal are in farming profession, as a result of which one third of national GDP and about equal amount of household income comes from agriculture sector. Instead of its high priority, agricultural development is not at a satisfactory level required for feeding growing population and stopping huge amount of national economy to depart from country.  The poor achievements on target set for twelve three year plan 2010/11 to 2011/12 justifies this.

All together twenty agricultural products were used as measuring rod for quantitative achievement in agricultural sector. Among these 20 indicators, just 6 indicators qualify on target set for the final year of plan. This indicates great disparity in our target and achievement. Not only this, some of the products was produced less than the base year production of the plan. This signifies, great loophole either in our target setting procedure or poor implementation of the programs.

Government of Nepal has highly prioritized in cereal crops production, which is justified by subsidized fertilizer supply, subsidized seed supply and larger irrigation projects targeted to cereals crops. However, production of cereals does not justify this. Similarly, cash crops like potato, sugarcane and oilseeds are also not in position to meet the target set.

Major deviations are also visible on spices crops like garlic, ginger and turmeric. Likewise, as government has prioritized in Tea and Coffee and which also do have high export potentials, growth in Tea and Coffee is also in negative ratio. The vegetable growth is found to have satisfactory in recent days; however, the growth is not sufficient to meet the target set.

Similarly, milk and meat production has sufficient growth to meet the target set, however egg production is laging behind the target set. Categorically , these achievements can be divided in to three group; first having achievement gained higher than both base year and three year plan, second higher than base year but lower than target plan and third, lower than both base year and target of the plan.

Products Higher than Base year and Target of Plan	Products Higher than Base year but lower than Target of Plan	Products Lower than both Base year and Target of the Plan
6 products-Pulses, Fruits, Ginger, Honey, Meat and Fish	9 Products- Cereals, Potato, Sugarcane, Oilseeds, Cardamom Chilli and Vegetables, Milk  and Egg	5 Products- Garlic, Turmeric, Tea, Coffee and Cocoon

Table : Targets and Achievements of 12^th  Three Year Plan

SN	Agriculture and Livestock Production	2009/10	Targets of Three Year Plan	Achievements
1	Cereal Crops ( '000 MT)	7762	9561	8738
2	Pulses ( '000 MT)	262	277	356
3	Cash Crops ( '000 MT)
	Potato	2517	2755	2690
	Sugarcance	2592	3238	2930
	Oilseeds	150	190	175
4	Fruits, Spices Tea ( '000 MT)
	Fruits	706	775	938
	Cardamom	5.23	8	6.02
	Garlic	57	57	41
	Ginger	210	228	255
	Turmeric	38	49	35
	Chilli	26	31	27
	Tea	18.75	25	18.72
5	Vegetables ( '000 MT)	3004	3601	3298
6	Coffee ( MT)	554	1200	366
7	Honey ( MT)	1100	1300	1625
8	Cocoon ( MT)	40	60	37.6
9	Livestock Products
	Milk ( '000 MT)	1496	1774	1680
	Meat ( '000 MT)	248	287	295
	Egg ( Caror Number)	64	93	88
10	Fish ( '000 MT)	50	56	57