The draft of the 20-year ADS, which has been prepared after several rounds of discussions with stakeholders at national, regional and local levels, was made public on Sunday at the Ministry of Agriculture Development (MoAD).[break]
Purushottam Mainali, deputy leader of the drafting committee, said target to achieve annual agriculture growth has been set at 5 percent after twenty year from the existing growth that hovers around 3 percent.
“The proposed draft of the ADS is aimed at achieving higher growth in farm sector by jacking up annual land productivity and per capita labor productivity to US$ 5,000 per hectare and US$ 2,000 per labor in 20 years,” said Mainali while presenting the features of the draft ADS. Currently, annual land productivity and per capita labor productivity stands at US$1,600 per hector and US$ 800 respectively.
Amid overall deficit of agro-products hovering around 50 percent of the total demands, the proposed ADS has envisioned to increase the contribution of domestic farm production to 80 percent of demands.
Contribution of agribusiness in total Gross Domestic Product (GDP) has been targeted to double to 20 percent under the scheme of profitable commercialization in farm sector as proposed in the upcoming ADS.
“The proposed ADS has also emphasized on enhancing competitiveness of Nepali farm products in international market to increase their exports to US$1.6 billion annually from existing US$ 250 million,” added Mainali. He stressed on the mobilization of private and cooperative sectors in production and distribution of agro-products in the country to boost export volume.
Amid lack of massive farm commercialization, Nepal has been importing huge chuck of agro products, mainly from India to supplement the rising domestic demands.
The ADS has also emphasized on making availability of quality seeds and fertilizers in time and improving irrigation and other necessary inputs, management of soil, plant, pest and animal husbandry as well as institutionalization of education to achieve the profitable farm commercialization.
Enhancing the government´s capacity to design, formulate and implement the farm related policies are indentified as other crucial components of governance stipulated in the proposed ADS .
At a time when major donors are opposing the farm subsidy, Mainali also assured that the proposed ADS will assure subsidy to farmers in an effort to enhance the competitiveness of local farmers to supply produces to international markets.
Prabhakar Pathak, spokesperson of the MoAD said the ADS was formulated to address the existing problems seen in farm sector such as frequent occurrence of food crisis, impact of climate change in agriculture production and lack of fulfillment of international commitment by the country.
“Though the government set out 15-year Agriculture Prospective Plan (APP) in 1995 to promote agriculture, some issues were left unaddressed by APP. Hence, ADS has been envisioned to deal with the emerging problems with new approach in the new context,” said Pathak.
The government had initiated the process to formulate the ADS from April last year setting target to finalize it in coming March.
Prem Dangal, representative from National Farmers Network for ADS drafting team, said the upcoming ADS will be more progressive than APP to incorporate the issues of peasants and ensure more farm productivity through higher investment.
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