Kathmandu. Minister for Agriculture and Livestock Development Ramnath Adhikari has said that agriculture should be commercialized using modern technology. He said this at the Agriculture, Cooperatives and Natural Resources Committee meeting held at Singha Durbar on Monday.
He said that the current ancient farming system cannot make agriculture self-reliant, adding that farmers who play with the soil all year round do not have enough food for even six months. He stressed the need to formulate policies in various stages to commercialize agriculture and implement them.
Saying that one cannot always survive by importing food, he said that the ministry has seriously thought about formulating a concrete policy.
He said, “Those who do not have land and cannot buy fertilizer and seeds, but they live in poverty, play in the soil all year round and do not have enough to eat for more than 6 months. Let’s think about number one, number two is the average farmer who cultivates all year round and can survive. Let’s think about that and third is the commercial farmer. If we can formulate this policy while remaining on the periphery of it, we may not be able to reach where we are trying to reach, but if we can take it to the implementation stage and manage it, Nepal will have enough imagination for now. But another challenge we have is that will we always survive only on imports? We cannot survive on imports, the entire Nepali has to survive. Let the farming I do reach 10 people, let the business I do reach 100,000 people. Let us think in that way and move forward.’
Minister Adhikari urged the committee members to submit suggestions for policy formulation to advance the farmers of the lower level so that they are freed from poverty. He said that the suggestions received by the ministry will be integrated and taken to the policy formulation level.
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