Furthermore, an alarming increase in farm product import in recent years and months, and over-reliance on limited major food products such as rice, wheat, potato, and corn for staple food has led to a loss of nutritional diversity from the daily diet and at the same time, loss of crop species diversity from the agricultural system, The high hills, and mountains of Nepal, have been facing a food de. [...] In addition to the direct impacts of COVID-19 on human health and labour mobility, 8.7% decline in rice production of Nepal in 2021, a worldwide increase in the cost of chemical fertilizer and petroleum, and recent imposition of 20% tariffs on rice exports by India (Asian Peace Research, 2022) have further aggravated the food availability and affordability situation. [...] Despite a commitment to SDG 2 by the federal government and providing high national priority to agriculture, natural resource management, and farm entrepreneurship in recent periodical national plans, including that in the 15th periodic plan, the country has not achieved significant progress in the indicators of food and nutrition security such as Global Hunger Index (GHI) and Food Insecurity Expe. [...] Although numerous programs were implemented to increase the production and achieve national food security in the past, timely identification of policy bottlenecks in broadening staple food base, incorporating locally adapted crop and livestock produce in the daily meals, and implementation of such policies at the municipal level are critical to achieve the food self-sufficiency targets. [...] To address that issue and achieve food and nutrition security, federal and provincial governments should focus on macro level policies and allocation of resources for promoting agrobiodiversity conservation, farming of local species and varieties of crops and livestock, implementing regulation on sustainable harvesting of forest-based traditional food products, and 7 Issue Number 6 N PI Policy Bri.
- Pages
- 10
- Published in
- Nepal
