Food production in the country in 2009 did not improve, and its impact will also be seen in 2010. The winter drought reduced production of food, particularly in food deficit areas like the hills and mountains of mid and far west regions. A study conducted by World Food Program and Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives revealed that about 3.7 million people are under severe food insecurity. Weather variability, which is compounded by climate change, is now considered a main problem in food production. Studies conducted to examine the impact of climate change on food production and on overall livelihood of people indicate that climate change will have detrimental impact on food security.
On the other hand, this change may have created some opportunities to produce more food, but Nepal lacks the capacity to utilize this opportunity. For example, it is shown from research conducted even in Nepal that if there is increased availability of irrigation water and other inputs like fertilizer, the rise in temperature would actually help in increasing food production. But it is doubtful whether this positive result would come true outside the laboratory where this research was done. The inadequate level of technology makes it difficult to control the environment and increase supply of inputs like water, which prevents getting the result that was seen in research areas.
Interestingly, in a few locations in the Tarai, production of rice and maize has increased because of the use of hybrid seeds, which come mainly from India. As farmers cannot produce the seed from the crops grown from hybrid seeds, it is also expected that their life will be determined by the companies who produce such seeds. Moreover, this practice is likely to wipe out the local seeds leading to total dependence of farmers on these private seed companies.
One of the main ways to secure food by people who do not produce sufficient food is to use income from employment or other sources for this purpose. Therefore, access to income is important for food security. But this access will continue to decline or, at most, may remain stable in 2010. The global financial recession is one of the factors for this. This recession has adversely affected both foreign labor market and domestic employment, even though not in a drastic manner, as was initially expected. But this recession has adversely impacted food security in Nepal. In 2010 also, this trend will continue as the recovery of the recession is slow.
In order to deal with the difficult circumstance that is seen in 2010, the government needs to strengthen its capacity to improve public programs of food security like ration cards, cheap food outlets, guaranteed employment and efficient public distribution system. But sadly, the government has not done enough in this area. As a result, food security situation may become worse in 2010.
Dr Jagannath Adhikari has been working on different development sectors such as agrarian change, natural resource conservation, food security and labor migration for the past 26 years. He has a Ph D in Agrarian Change from Australian National University, Australia and has authored several books on food security, migration and urbanization.
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