August 27, 2020: Paddy cultivation has reached the highest figure so far at 98 per cent this year, the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock Development said. Rice has been cultivated on about one million 347 thousand hectares land this year.
Ministry spokesman Dr Hari Bahadur KC explained that highest percentage of cultivation is because most of the people returned to their villages from urban areas owing to COVID-19 pandemic and they cultivated paddy in most of their field which otherwise remained uncultivated before.
Imported fertiliser starts entering country
Meanwhile, the urea fertiliser imported by the government has started entering the country and its supply would be smooth within a week. The government has imported 32 thousand 500 metric tonnes urea from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) through the Salt trading Corporation Limited. The consignment will arrive here via Kolkata port of India. The urea has already arrived in Kolkata port at present, spokesman KC said. It will be brought into the country via Birgunj and Biratnagar.
Dr KC, however, said other fertiliser has already started entering the country since Tuesday. Three thousand metric tonnes fertiliser entered the country on Tuesday alone. Of this amount, 2,500 metric tonnes entered through Birgunj customs and 500 metric tonnes from Biratnagar customs. 27,500 metric tonnes fertiliser will be brought to Birgunj by train while 5,000 metric tonnes will be brought to Biratnagar on truck. He said this fertiliser will be supplied to all provinces except Province no 1.
The Ministry spokesman said all fertiliser would have arrived Nepal from Kolkata within 15 days. He said farmers will be able to get fertiliser easily within a week of the arrival of fertiliser from Kolkata. The fertiliser will be distributed to farmers through the Corporation’s depots. He said around one million farmers will be able to apply fertiliser to their paddy crop once it is supplied the provinces.
In principle, about 800 thousand metric tonnes fertiliser, including DAP, potash and urea, is required every year in the country. However, Dr KC said that 550 thousand metric tonnes is practically required.
Between 200 thousand to 300 thousand metric tonnes fertiliser is annually imported in the country.
Source: nepal24hours.com
