By A Staff Reporter

Kathmandu, Apr. 26: The Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock Development is preparing the modality of relief package to the farmers affected by the lockdown enforced to prevent the spread of COVID-19.
“We are collecting the suggestions and losses of agriculture sector from State and local governments to announce the relief package to mitigate the losses faced by the farmers due to the lockdown,” said Dr Hari Bahadur KC, spokesman at the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock Development.
He said that the government would unveil relief package for the famers at the earliest incorporating the suggestions made by all the seven states.
It is a must to analyze the losses faced by the farmers in all local bodies, he said, adding that the government would introduce a similar relief package to all farmers across the country based on their losses.
“The different State governments are suggesting the federal government to announce different relief packages for different crops and livestock sector. So, the federal government will make the package similar in all states,” he told The Rising Nepal.
Earlier, Minister for Agriculture and Livestock Development Ghanashyan Bhusal discussed with the Agriculture Ministers of all states about the impact of COVID in agriculture and relief package to the farmers.
The state governments suggested providing Rs 10 per litre relief on milk, Rs 3-8 per piece of egg and Rs 100 per fowl to the farmers based on their losses, he said.
“We are discussing the proposal of subsidy received from the local and state governments and the Ministry will submit the final relief package to the cabinet for approval,” he said.
According to him, the government would provide cash incentives to the dairy farmers based on their losses during the lockdown period. “We will analyse losses of dairy farmers based on their sales of the month of Falgun,” he said.
The dairy associations have claimed that milk collection from the formal sector had reduced by 50 per cent during the lockdown.
Now, around 450,000-500,000 litrres of milk is being collected daily from the farmers across the country against the normal collection of 1,000,000 litres from the formal sector. Farmers are facing a loss of Rs 25 million with the drop of milk collection daily.
Similarly, the ministry is holding discussions to provide cash incentives to the vegetable farmers based on areas of farming and losses as the local bodies would know about the losses farmers incurred due to the lockdown.
Spokesman KC said that state and local governments would distribute relief to the farmers following the decision of the federal government where the federal government would allocate budget to them if they faced shortfall of funds to distribute relief to the farmers.
He said that lockdown had affected the agriculture and livestock sector and farmers were facing losses after being unable to sell their products in the market in time.
“The poultry sector has been affected severely. The restrictions on movement of vehicles due to lockdown is disrupting the supply-chain at various levels - hatcheries, feed mills, poultry farms and retail outlets, hence the sector is facing hardship,” he said.
Poultry Federation of Nepal claimed that poultry sector was facing direct losses of above Rs 220 million daily.
Earlier, the government had announced to provide 25 per cent subsidy on the transportation of agro products to ease the supply of agro products, including vegetables, milk, fruits and cereals during the lockdown.