KATHMANDU: Nepal’s cereal imports are expected to swell to a record 855,800 tonnes in 2015-16, a whopping 35 percent jump over last year’s level, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations said in its latest report. In terms of value, the import figure could reach Rs48 billion. The country’s cereal import bill amounted to Rs35.12 billion in the last fiscal year.
Most of the total projected food imports are rice, the FAO said. Rice shipments are anticipated to amount to 640,000 tonnes in 2016, up 14 percent from the previous year’s level.
The expected sharp rise in imports has been attributed to the reduced production in 2015 and sustained demand. Similarly, a lower 2015 maize output is expected to boost imports to 190,000 tonnes from last year’s low level of 50,000 tonnes.
According to the statistics of Nepal Rastra Bank, the rice and paddy import bill jumped 43.4 percent to Rs24.75 billion in the last fiscal year, largely due to disappointing summer harvests. All the rice imports were made from India.
The rice import bill stood at Rs13.14 billion in 2012-13 and surged to Rs17.26 billion in 2013-14. The FAO has forecast Nepal’s 2015 rice production to reach 4.6 million tonnes, 4 percent below last year’s reduced level, as a result of a light contraction in the area planted and yields, following below-average rains over the central and eastern Tarai areas, which account for the bulk of rice production at the national level.
Harvesting of the 2015 rice crop started in mid-October and will continue until December. However, the government estimates that the production of cereal crops could drop sharply by at least 15 percent, with paddy production expected to fall 10 percent.
According to Hem Raj Regmi, chief statistician of the Ministry of Agricultural Development, the paddy production areas contracted 4 percent this year, while 3 percent of the paddy fields has been left unused due to lack of water.
Likewise, the ministry has reported the level of crop failures at 1 percent of the total paddy fields due to seed failure and untimely transplantation. Paddy is cultivated on 1.5 million hectares of arable land in Nepal
After having endured drought and erratic rain throughout the June-August transplantation period, Nepali farmers have been hit by a shortage of vital farm inputs and subsequent crop failure this season.
“We are currently doing a crop assessment in 20 districts, and preliminary reports show a record drop in output this year,” said Regmi, adding that the winter crop output, particularly wheat, could also be discouraging if fertilizers are not distributed on time.
So far, the government has released 13,000 tonnes of chemical fertilizers in the last three weeks out of the shipments stuck at Birgunj dry port due to the ongoing Tarai unrest. The requirement of chemical fertilizers for the winter crops amounts to 50,000 tonnes.
The FAO estimate of the 2015 maize crop, harvested by September, indicates a 7 percent year-on-year decline with an output level of 2 million tonnes. The drop is mainly due to reduced seed and fertilizer availability, following losses caused by the earthquake in April.
