Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba has expressed concern over the country facing a situation where food items have to be imported from outside the country.
The Prime Minister rued the inability to tap the country's abundance potential to produce enough food items itself. "Despite the country having huge potential, importing foodstuffs including the staples like rice, wheat, corn and vegetables from foreign countries is a matter of concern. This has also increased the country's trade deficit," he said at a two-day seminar with the theme of 'Situation of food security in Nepal' organised here on Thursday jointly by the National Security Council Secretariat (NSCS) and Quarter Master General, the Nepal Army.
To end this situation, Deuba suggested that there should be access to food for all Nepali people by producing enough within the country. The country is weak in the world in terms of food production despite more than two-thirds of the country's total population being dependent on agriculture, he said.
The Prime Minister blamed the traditional form of farming, lack of irrigation, fertilisers, hybrid seeds and workforce, land fragmentation and the market and unseasonal rain for the poor state of food production in the country.
"Rice cultivation during summer and autumn season under the prime minister agriculture modernisation project launched by the government can help resolve problems related to food security."
On the occasion, Brigadier General of Nepal Army Krishna Raj Acharya, who is also the assistant coordinator for the NSCS, gave a presentation on the discussions and conclusions taken from working papers presented by the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock Development, the Ministry of Industry, Commerce and Supplies, the National Planning Commission and the Policy Research Institute. The session aimed to assess and evaluate the current situation of food security in the country and make recommendations to the government accordingly.
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