By Laxman Kafle

Kathmandu, May 12: The Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock Development is going to modify the modality of grant on agriculture aiming to ensure the access of all farmers to such support.
“The Ministry is adopting the policy level departure on agricultural assistance system to cover all farmers, including small ones, under different heading of assistance instead of existing competitive grant system from the upcoming fiscal budget,” Dr Hari Bahadur KC, spokesman at the ministry, said.
Under the existing proposal-based grant system adopted by the government, only limited people are enjoying the facility based on their approach while the small farmers are still deprived of the government grant.
According to KC, the ministry has proposed to provide subsidy on interest of bank loan, electricity used for agro business and production of crops and seeds, among others.
He, however, said the existing proposal based on grant system in agriculture sector was supported for agriculture development, but only limited farmers benefited from it.
“Our focus is to discourage the existing competitive grant system gradually and develop the modality to ensure the access of all farmers to the government support and encourage them in agriculture,” he told The Rising Nepal.
Besides, the Ministry has proposed to ensure the insurance system on agriculture for all farmers, improve the distribution of chemical fertilisers, make seeds and equipment available in subsidy and facilitate the marketing of agro products.
The Ministry is developing a system to fix the minimum support price of agro products before the plantation season rather than fixing price during the harvesting season, he added.
He said that the Ministry had been preparing programmes to construct cold stores in the local units targeting to store goods during the production season and sell them the off season.
“We are talking with the Ministry of Finance to provide certain per cent subsidy in electricity tariff to the farmers who are doing agro and livestock business commercially. Currently, the government is providing subsidy on tariff for irrigation,” he said.
Under the government policy not to leave the land barren, the ministry would distribute saplings of fruits to the farmers in subsidy to cover the barren land with fruits where possible and also encourage the farmers not to keep their fertile land barren.
“The Ministry is bringing special package programme in the new budget to attract youth, including migrant returnees to agriculture and make them entrepreneurs at home," he said.
There is high chance a large number of migrant workers would return home due to the impact of coronavirus, he said, adding that entrepreneurship programmes would be run for the youth jointly by the three tiers of government from their respective sides.
According to him, the government is also in discussion with the line ministries including Ministry of Finance about relief programmes for the farmers affected by the coronavirus.
“The Ministry will prepare the programmes in line with the budget ceiling of Rs 33.18 billion given by the National Planning Commission (NPC) to implement the existing programmes and new programmes for commercialisation, modernisation and mechanisation of agriculture aiming to make the country self-reliant in agriculture at the earliest possible.
He said that the Ministry would focus to extend farming of pre-monsoon paddy (Chaite Dhan) and maize in the next fiscal year.
“Considering the increasing import of potatoes and onion, the ministry is also planning to introduce import substitute programme of potato, onion and other vegetable items in the next fiscal year. Under the programme, we will focus on expanding the potato and onion farming areas and provide quality seeds to the farmers by allocating required budget,” he said.
He said that the ministry was allocating around Rs 10 billion budget for importing chemical fertilisers and selling them to the farmers at subsided rates.
KC said that the Ministry would strengthen the monitoring of the Prime Minister Agriculture Modernisation Project to make it more effective in the coming years.
The Ministry will spend Rs 4-5 billion annually to run the PMAMP.
He said that the ministry had designed programmes to run zone and super zone programmes of the PMAMP by the federal government, pockets by local governments and blocks by the State governments from the upcoming fiscal year.
As per the constitutional provision, the government will present the budget for the next fiscal year on May 28.
Before that, President Bidya Devi Bhandari is scheduled to present the government’s policies and programmes on May 15 in the joint session of the Federal Parliament.