ADS says poverty can be halved in 10 years at 5pc agri growth

KATHMANDU, MAR 25 -

Nepal can halve poverty in less than 10 years if the agriculture sector grows at the rate of 5 percent annually, said the Action Plan and Road Map Report of the Agriculture Development Strategy (ADS).

However, at the current rate of growth of 3 percent, it’s going to take more than 20 years to get there. According to Third Living Standard Survey 2010-11, 25.4 percent of Nepal’s population lives under the poverty line.

Nepal has drastically cut multidimensional poverty to 44 percent in 2012 from 65 percent of 2010, according to the Oxford University Study.

Multidimensional poverty is also related to the quality of service people receive besides their income level. “A rate of growth in agriculture reduces poverty five times more than the same rate of growth in a non-agriculture sector,” it said.

ADS team leader Francesco Goletti said that a different approach should be taken to enhance farm production to ensure higher agriculture growth in order to bring down the poverty rate faster.

Presenting a paper on the ADS, he said that linkages between agriculture and other sectors were crucial to reduce poverty, particularly in rural areas where the development of non-farm activities based on agriculture would be fundamental for a more balanced rural economy, employment generation and overall robust economic growth.

In this context, he said that the ADS should not only look into production of crops, livestock, fisheries and forestry

but also the processing sector, trade and other services such as storage, transportation, finance, marketing, research and extension.

The new strategy has targeted increasing land productivity to US$ 5,000 per hectare from the present US$ 1,600. Similarly, it has also aimed to push up labour productivity to US$ 800 per worker from US$ 2,000. Likewise, exports of food items have been targeted to grow to US$ 1.6 billion from US$ 250 million after implementing the ADS.

The 20-year vision paper will supersede the Agriculture Perspective Plan (APP) by 2015. The APP failed to attain its objectives and so is being replaced. The proposed long-term plan will adopt four strategies to attain its vision by accelerating agriculture growth. They are governance, productivity, profitable commercialization and competitiveness while promoting inclusiveness.

As an estimated food deficit of 5 percent prevails in the country, the proposed ADS has envisioned attaining a food surplus of 5 percent by improving land and labour productivity. Goletti said the ADS would be designed based on the assumption that the agriculture sector would expand processing instead of production in the coming days.

Speaking at the programme, Minister of Agriculture Development Tek Bahadur Thapa stressed the need to formulate differentiated strategies for different groups of farmers to ensure the maximum benefit out of the strategy. “Farmers at the primary level and those at the advanced level should be treated differently,” he added. “To make the policy successful, we need to protect the farmers.”

Thapa said that innovation, institution, policies and infrastructure were vital for improving the competitiveness of agro products in the international arena.

Meanwhile, stakeholders also highlighted the need for improving competitiveness in the international market to promote the sector.

Finance secretary Shanta Raj Subedi said that there should be policy coherence with other polices so that policy conflicts would not affect implementation of the ADS. “There is a need for adequate investment in the agriculture sector,” he added.

Source: The Kathmandu Post