FEATURES NEWS THE RISING NEPAL (DAILY)

By Ambar Mainali

IT is indeed quite alarming that Nepal, which once was an exporter of food grains, has now turned into an importer of the same. There has been a decreasing trend in per capita food grain production over the years. The population growth rate in the early eighties stood at 2.5 per cent while agricultural growth was nearly three percent. The then agricultural growth superseded the population growth rate by 0.5 per cent. But the case turned out to be different when entering the new millennium.

Statistics

The agricultural production over the span of twenty years has not been able to keep abreast with the burgeoning population. Though official statistics show that there has been an increase in the per hectare production of wheat and other crops, still the annual production is far from adequate to support the growing population. The per capita food grain production, which stood at 376 Kg in the year 2032 B.S. decreased to 277 Kg in the year 2049 B.S. according to the Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS).

Similarly, the poverty incidence, which stood at 40 per cent in the year 2034 B.S. went up to 49 per cent in the year 2049 B.S. This was accompanied by an increasing trend in the ratio of agriculture import to agricultural export. The ratio of agricultural import to agricultural export had gone up by 1.5 per cent between the years 2032 B.S. to 2036 B.S. There was an increase of one per cent in the same ratio between the years 2047 B.S and 2050 B.S. according to official figures. Now looking at the figures the question as to why Nepal has failed to boost its agricultural productions and regain its export status is often raised.

The factors behind the inability to keep agricultural production at par with the rate of population growth are lack of clear-cut strategy and failure to emphasize sectoral growth. Other factors that have often been identified for decreased agricultural productivity are inability to meet the year round demand of fertilizers and the lack of infrastructure base for year round and controlled irrigation. The absence of improved farm technology is one other factor for low productivity. The initiatives for improving the feudal state of land ownership were spearheaded in the year 1956 with the enactment of the Land and Cultivation Record Compilation Act. This was given continuity with the Lands Act in 1957 when the government began to compile tenants' records. These Acts certainly helped to improve the state of land holdings but the state of small farmers did not improve, which called for further initiatives.
The Agricultural Reorganization Act, passed in 1963 and the Land Reform Act, passed in 1964 , underscored the need to provide security to the tenant farmers and also put a ceiling on landholdings. There were several loopholes in the Acts, which enabled large landholders to control most of the lands. There was some success in protecting the rights of the tenant farmers, but not much was achieved in land redistribution.

The country still has the predominance of small farmers. There are nearly 64 per cent small farmers and of them 39 per cent have less than half hectare of land. Other prominent features of Nepalese agriculture have been low productivity, land degradation, land fragmentation, deforestation and lack of technical knowledge. As of 1990, average land holdings remained small. The manifestos of the political parties, have emphasised the need to bring about thorough land reform to boost productivity and accordingly bolster the economy. But all of them failed to put their words into action. The political parties did try and work things out but political instability that loomed large in the past twelve years proved to be a major setback to all efforts geared at land reform. The political parties elected to power failed to gain the confidence of the parties in the opposition, which had a negative bearing on the overall efforts to bring about land reform.

Moreover the parties were filled with extreme bias for one another and dumped the reports prepared on many social issues including land reform. The Communist Party of Nepal (United Marxist-Leninist) during its rule as the minority government had formed a Commission to conduct an overall study of the state of agricultural land in the country under the Chairmanship of the then member of the parliament Keshab Badal. The Badal Commission did submit a report to the government. There was the change of government after nine months and the report did not figure anywhere in the agenda of the succeeding government.

The Nepali Congress government headed by Sher Bahadur Deuba in the year 2058 B.S. came up with a popular policy of land reform and even initiated steps to verify the state of the total land area in the country and probe individual landholdings. Though there was much hue and cry and a commitment to seize the land of individuals who had violated the prescribed land ceilings, the Nepalese people never came across a single case where such land was confiscated and the concerned individual penalised. Hence the efforts of the Deuba government to bring about land reform failed. Though it was a humble step, unfortunately it did not materialise due to reasons unknown.

Unfortunate

It is indeed unfortunate that a poor country like Nepal, which has an agrarian economy, has failed to step up efforts to bring about land reform in the true sense. The actual farmers in Nepal do not have adequate land to till. This has led to the lowering of productivity. Going by the development history of countries that have now achieved a lot in the economic front, it is clear that they had started their development endeavour through honest efforts in the area of land reform. Unless the land that Nepal has is used to the maximum level through the mobilisation of people who are directly linked with the land, Nepal will go on spending millions to import food grains to feed its growing population.

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