PM Oli bats for doubling agro production

KATHMANDU: Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli underscored doubling agricultural production and called for adopting modern and productive agriculture rising above subsistence farming.

PM Oli, also Chancellor of the Agriculture and Forestry University (AFU), said so while addressing the 13th annual general assembly of AFU from official residence of Prime Minister at Baluwatar today.

Insisting that we should remove the reliance on farming for livelihood, Oli viewed that agricultural production would be boosted with thorough study on what crops could be planted where and how market could be expanded for those produces.

For that, he emphasized collaboration among government, cooperatives and private sector. The Head of the Government requested the AFU to produce skilled agriculture scientists, engineers as well as other human resources given the increasing need and demand of human resources in the agriculture-based country like Nepal.

Around 66 per cent of Nepal’s population is engaged in agriculture sector and this sector contributes one-third of the nation’s GDP, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.

PM Oli in his address further asserted that modern system and mass production find market. We will suffer trade deficit until we increase our production. The tendency of running economy on the basis of exports and remittance should be bucked,” he stressed.

Furthermore, he shared that the government was planning fruit cultivation in vacant land in the forest. In this way we could ensure agriculture contributes to national economy and thereby increasing self-reliance on food productions.”