Jagannath Adhikari on Nepal’s Rising Dependence on Food Imports

[00:00:10] - [Speaker 0]
Namaste and welcome to Pods by PI, a Policy discussion series brought to you by Policy Entrepreneurs Inc. My name is Videsh Sapkola. In today's episode, PI colleague Plasatajosi sits with Doctor. Jagannath Adhikari to discuss Nepal's growing dependence on food import. Doctor.

[00:00:28] - [Speaker 0]
Jagannath Adhikari is a Human Geographer. He has a PhD in Human Geography from the Australian National University. He is currently associated with the Curtin University of Technology as an adjunct research fellow and with Nepal Institute of Development Studies as a senior researcher. Some of his published work include Essays on Development of Nepal, Food Crisis in Nepal and Migration and Remittance Economy of Nepal. Lasuta and Doctor Jagannath talk about how an increase in reliance on food imports is a threat to Nepal's national sovereignty.

[00:01:04] - [Speaker 0]
They also explain how while being predominantly an agricultural economy, the country's food import transactions have expanded in recent decades. We hope you enjoy the conversation.

[00:01:24] - [Speaker 1]
Thank you, Jagannath, for joining us at BI Studio all the way from Pokhara and for being a part of Pods by BI. First and foremost, welcome to the show.

[00:01:35] - [Speaker 2]
Thank you for giving an opportunity to talk to you about this important issue.

[00:01:42] - [Speaker 1]
Shall we get started with the conversation?

[00:01:45] - [Speaker 2]
Yes. Sure. Let's start.

[00:01:47] - [Speaker 1]
The focus of our discussion today is a 2021 paper. Nepal's growing dependency on food imports, a threat to national sovereignty and ways forward. To start, may I ask why you chose to write this paper?

[00:02:03] - [Speaker 2]
We felt that this growing dependence on other countries for food could be very critical for Nepal, especially when the food supply chain gets disturbed. At that time, 2021, food supply chain was disrupted by COVID pandemic and there could have been a crisis. We felt that such a situation could arise anytime. When there is war, there are conflicts, when there are political disturbances that could block food supply chain. And so we felt that I, being a researcher on food system, agriculture development, livelihood security, I felt that it could be a very critical issue for Nepal.

[00:02:50] - [Speaker 2]
And other my colleagues who participated in writing this paper also felt the same way. And so we decided that we write a paper that can warn policymakers about the need to devise a good policy so that Nepal doesn't face that situation.

[00:03:12] - [Speaker 1]
That seems like a good question to pick on this important topic. Now getting into your paper You state that your goal is to show how Nepal became a net importer of food despite being an agriculture based economy So can you begin by illustrating the current situation of Nepal's food import?

[00:03:35] - [Speaker 2]
Well, if you go up to like nineteen seventies, Nepal was a net exporter of food. Nepal used to export a lot of rice to Bangladesh, to India, and to other countries. And then it hasn't been able to keep up with the population growth within the country, as well as it hasn't been able to keep up with production or the yield of the crop as compared to other countries. In terms of money, I think, as I've read recently, about a billion dollar is spent in importing food, which is a big amount. The trade statistics clearly tells that we are spending a lot of money on food imports.

[00:04:19] - [Speaker 2]
I have analyzed how much money we spent in importing food for some time, and it's growing a lot. I think the money spent on food import has grown by 80 times in the last twenty years. So it's a big jump in food import. We still call Nepal an agricultural country, but being an agricultural country, it's a bit shameful to import such an amount of food. I mean, it's true that we can't produce all food we require, but at least I think we should be able to be self sufficient in some.

[00:04:54] - [Speaker 2]
So overall, in every commodity, we are importing food and this import is growing year by year.

[00:05:05] - [Speaker 1]
This is a good depiction of the issue at hand. Now, let's get into the drivers of this transformation. You point out four main drivers of Nepal's changes in food import and production. You begin with the politics of modernization and economic growth. Could you please elaborate briefly on this?

[00:05:30] - [Speaker 2]
Prior to 1950, during the Ronald P. Wade, there was a lot of disparity. There was a lot of poverty. People didn't have access to land, many of the people, because land was controlled mainly by Vandas and Jamindars and others. And so there was a lot of migration to other places, especially Assam and India, Darjeeling.

[00:05:51] - [Speaker 2]
So that was there. Despite that, overall food production was sufficient for the people, even though distribution was a big problem at that time. Inequality was there. And there's no modernization of agriculture then, even though you can see one or two plants that aim to modernize agriculture. And then came after Rana Visayim, Nepal was on the path of modernization.

[00:06:19] - [Speaker 2]
Government started developing plants from the mid 1950s. Agriculture was a priority. They started modernizing, bringing new seeds, improved seeds, fertilizer, and then the main focus was on increasing production. In the mid-60s, this concept of green revolution was brought to Nepal also. Green revolution means use of high yielding seeds, use of fertilizer, use of irrigation very intensively and then produce more yield per unit length.

[00:07:00] - [Speaker 2]
So that's our concept.

[00:07:04] - [Speaker 1]
So that brings us neatly to your second driver, which is regional geopolitics and increased economic relations. Here, you discussed the success of green revolution in India and its impact on Nepal. Could you please explain?

[00:07:22] - [Speaker 2]
In India, I think government was very strong. They supported farmers heavily, and it was one of the successful countries in the growing revolution producing more food. Especially it was very successful in producing cereals rice, wheat, maize kind of thing. And so it produced a lot of surplus food. There the government started buying whatever food is produced by the farmers with minimum support price.

[00:07:51] - [Speaker 2]
Minimum support price means farmers could sell the production that covers their cost, the cost that involved, plus some profit, some margin for that so they could easily sell it to government depots. So that's why Green Revolution was successful in India. And then the surplus food in India became cheaper, and then the food was exported to other countries at low cost. On Nepal's case, I think the government wasn't able to support in the same extent. And food production was costly in Nepal as compared to India.

[00:08:31] - [Speaker 2]
And then when we followed free trade, then obviously cheaper food comes to Nepal. That started from that time, and then it's still continuing now.

[00:08:44] - [Speaker 1]
While we are on the subject of Indian food imports, could you please paint a picture of how much we trade with India and why?

[00:08:54] - [Speaker 2]
Nepal is primarily dependent on India for food. In terms of the amount, it has been increasing a lot in terms of absolute amount. But Nepal has also started importing food from other countries. So in percentage term, it's been declining in India. We used to import 9095% of the food only from India.

[00:09:22] - [Speaker 2]
But now it has been declining in terms of percentage. But as we import more and more food, the absolute amount of food that we are importing from India has also been growing a lot. The reason why we depend on India is basically because India has a lot of surplus of cereal food. That mainly means rice, wheat. So this comes basically from India.

[00:09:50] - [Speaker 2]
And also nowadays a lot of vegetables and fruits have also started coming from India. And they are cheaper as compared to Nepal. The reason why we get more food from India because it's quite a close neighbor and there's a lot of trade relations, it's an open border. So in that sense, it's obvious for Nepal to bring more food from India because transportation cost is low when we import from India. And also Nepal being a landlocked country, we don't have access to sea routes, we don't have direct access to other countries.

[00:10:31] - [Speaker 2]
So so it is one reason why we have to Nepal has to buy a lot of food from India.

[00:10:39] - [Speaker 1]
Your third driver deals with the political instability of the country. Can you please explain how the conflict impacted Nepal's agriculture?

[00:10:50] - [Speaker 2]
The conflict impacted significantly on farmers, on people producing food. Because in producing food, you need to be secure of, for example, access to land and harvesting of crops. You grow the crops, but you need to be secure that you can harvest it. During the conflict, what happened is many people were displaced. Most of the landowners, they fled the countryside and came to the city, and they left landfellow And for the people who were in the villages, they were also hesitant to cultivate those lands because police and armies would come there and then those who cultivated it could be punished.

[00:11:41] - [Speaker 2]
So it was very hard for both landowners and tenants to continue farming. So it started from there. And also it is linked to migration because just to save their life, many people migrated to city, and from city they start migrating to other countries. So it was one of the push factors for migration.

[00:12:06] - [Speaker 1]
This is an interesting topic you raise. Could you please elaborate on the impact of migration on Nepal's agriculture and food systems?

[00:12:16] - [Speaker 2]
Migration and agricultural development, there's a very interesting relation. In Nepal's case, migration has impacted more or less the relation is negative one. In few cases in other countries, we have seen that migration has contributed in agricultural development. But in the past case, we haven't seen this. Here, people migrate.

[00:12:44] - [Speaker 2]
They have migrated to other countries, brought a lot of remittance. A major part of household income is now dependent on remittance rather than farm income. The money that comes in remittances could have been invested in farming and producing more food. But this hasn't really happened in Nepal. Rather, remittance is being more and more used in buying imported food rather than investing in land and producing your own food.

[00:13:17] - [Speaker 2]
But if there is a right policy, this remittance income could go into as a capital for investment in farming, but it hasn't been so. And then also migration, people coming from outside with the skills in farming, agro processing, or in services could help in fueling the economic activities. They could use this skill, but most of them, most of the returning migrants, they are not involved in agriculture, except for one or two cases that has come into media also, like people coming from Malaysia, are doing farming here, producing milk, this and that. But it's very little. But with policy support for returning migrants and support for investment in agriculture, I think remittance can fuel agricultural development.

[00:14:19] - [Speaker 1]
Now moving on with the fourth and final driver, which is the changing social culture of values associated with food system due to globalization. Could you please elaborate on how this has contributed to Nepal's growing food imports?

[00:14:37] - [Speaker 2]
Globalization has also impacted our food culture And we are getting to know about new food that comes from other countries, from other cultures. And so our consumption has been diversified. So we are consuming new and new food that we know. We are consuming Western food more and more. So yeah, obviously globalization has a lot of impact on our food.

[00:15:03] - [Speaker 2]
Like if I compare myself and my children, we can see the food I used to consume in my childhood days and now are very different. This is obviously not a bad thing. Having a lot of diversified food and to diversify our food culture is part of modernization. The main thing boils down on how far we diversify and what food we consume. For example, if with modernization we are consuming more and more packaged food, processed food, and that is obviously harmful for our health.

[00:15:42] - [Speaker 2]
Also that these are very expensive. So if we consume local food, basic foods, I think we could buy more food as compared to processed food. So yeah, it is affecting both our food culture as well as our health. In that sense, because of this, there's a lot of imported food.

[00:16:10] - [Speaker 3]
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[00:16:24] - [Speaker 3]
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[00:16:57] - [Speaker 3]
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[00:17:16] - [Speaker 1]
We recently witnessed farmers protesting in Chitwan, where they staged a symbolic protest claiming that their domestic product is not being paid a fair price. What are your thoughts on what is going on there?

[00:17:33] - [Speaker 2]
Yeah. That's good example now that you mentioned about the farmers in Chitung. So if you look deeper into it, there are two issues. One is they are not able to sell their products because marketing mechanism, marketing chains are controlled by people. They don't want to bring in the goods produced by small farmers.

[00:17:58] - [Speaker 2]
There are some issues with small farmers. They say that they don't produce enough, there's not a marketable surplus that can be transported. That's one reason, because small farmers are not able to break into the market chain. The second is also the price, because cheaper goods come from India with reliable supply, then the already established market mechanism favors that kind of a supply. Yeah, as a result, our small farmers are not able to sell their products.

[00:18:34] - [Speaker 2]
So it is both market monopoly and who controls the market. The people who control the supply chain, they tend to favor those products from India. And then there is price also. Our farmers are not particularly benefiting from the existing market magnesium. So if government was able to make guaranteed market for the produce, I think they would not have made that protest.

[00:19:03] - [Speaker 1]
So having examined the various factors that have increased food imports, how do you believe Nepal should approach food self sufficiency and food sovereignty?

[00:19:15] - [Speaker 2]
I think our country should be at least at least able to produce some basic food. Doesn't mean that a country should be fully self sufficient in all kinds of food. So no country can be fully self sufficient in all kinds of food because different food needs different climatic situation, different environment. So we can't produce all the food that's required within the country. But basic concept is we should be able to have at least some self sufficiency in some basic, stable food so that even if there is a crisis outside the country, we can survive that crisis.

[00:20:01] - [Speaker 2]
For example, when there's a blockade or there was a blockade of trade between Nepal and India, if we didn't have some food, some rice and other food produced within the country, I think the switch is a little bit difficult. So I faced blockade in 1990 and 2015. So in 1990 I have seen there's no impact at all when there was a blockade because Nepal could produce enough food. Whereas in 2015, there was a huge crisis within a month or two. So at least I think it's important for our country to be sovereign, to have some basic food production, at least for some time.

[00:20:47] - [Speaker 2]
Food self sufficiency means at least some reliance within oneself so that we can go through when crisis happens. That's why many countries like Japan and others, they still provide a lot of subsidy to produce, for example, rice. And it's not economical for them to give subsidy because they could buy a lot cheaper food from our side, lot cheaper rice from Thailand and other places, but still they give a lot of subsidy to farmers to produce food because they want to maintain some supply chains within their country. So, yeah, it is important, if it is possible, to produce food. And Nepal can produce food.

[00:21:32] - [Speaker 2]
Nepal has that capacity. So in that sense, I think we need to have some policies that help at least to have some reliance on oneself to pass through a crisis. So that makes a country truly sovereign.

[00:21:50] - [Speaker 1]
One last question. One of your recommendation is about government offering farmers with minimum support price. Can you please elaborate how this can be implemented?

[00:22:04] - [Speaker 2]
Minimum support price basically means farmers will have a guarantee market of the produce they want to sell and then the price is fixed in such a way that it covers the cost of production. For example, a quintilla price requires a 100 rupees cost of production And then the price is fixed based on this cost of production plus maybe 10% margin for the farmers. So the price would be fixed Rs. 110 covers the cost plus 10 rupees margin. So this would be the minimum price.

[00:22:43] - [Speaker 2]
So this is hypothetical. So how much margin you give to the farmer depends on the farmers and government negotiation. And so this is fixed. And then the farmers, if they can't sell it in the market, they will sell it in the government marketing depots. So this is minimum price support.

[00:23:05] - [Speaker 2]
If this is the case, many farmers would produce food because they are guaranteed of selling it, at least recovering the cost of production. And in that sense, this will encourage farmers to produce more food. So government can do it by allocating more funds for the farmer's support, and then the surplus food purchased can be distributed to the people who are in the poverty situation. So that will also avoid bringing in food from Food Aid and other organization. So that will eventually help the country.

[00:23:43] - [Speaker 1]
Do you also see some hurdles that we can expect during implementation of minimum support price?

[00:23:50] - [Speaker 2]
The hurdle is basically, it might require some funds. Government has to allocate some budget for that. That's the main hurdle. But it's not a kind of hurdle that government can't do it. Government is spending so much money in unnecessary things.

[00:24:09] - [Speaker 2]
It can cut many of the expenses and give it to the farmers. And also implementing it, who is going to implement it? Unless we bring in farmers, real farmers organization in the implementation mechanism, it will be difficult to implement it. The other hurdle could come from like corporate sector, from middlemen who generally benefit at the cost of the farmers. They could protest.

[00:24:35] - [Speaker 2]
They can change the policies because they also have political power. So, yeah, there were hurdles, but if there is a committed government, I think it is doable.

[00:24:48] - [Speaker 1]
Now as we close our conversation, is there anything you want to relay to our listeners?

[00:24:55] - [Speaker 2]
I think we covered a lot in this discussion. You put very critical and interesting questions. I think I've shared some of my ideas. The only thing I would like to tell is I think there are many people now in cities who don't produce food, but who have the intellectual capacity to look into it. So I think food production and what food is, what it contains should be the interest of all of us, even though we don't produce food.

[00:25:28] - [Speaker 2]
So all the city dwellers, all the young people, they should be knowing of how the food is produced, what is there, who benefits, whether farmers benefits or not. And most of all, they should know how the food on their table comes, what it contains, whether it's good in quality or not. We all should be concerned about it. We are not paying good attention to the food that we consume, but if we are more concerned about the quality of the food, how it is produced, who produces it, whether they are in good condition or not, I think we should be able to change the situation. So we should be aware about all these things.

[00:26:14] - [Speaker 1]
And with that, we have come to the end of today's episode. Thank you for being here on Pods by PE at Jagannath. It was a pleasure to have spoken with you.

[00:26:24] - [Speaker 2]
Thank you for this opportunity to share my views. Yeah. So thank you again.

[00:26:32] - [Speaker 1]
Thank you all for listening in. See you until next time.

[00:26:43] - [Speaker 0]
Thanks for listening to Pods by PI. I hope you enjoyed Lasuta's conversation with Jagunath about how an increase in reliance on food imports is a threat to Nepal's national sovereignty. They also explained how while being predominantly an agricultural economy, the country's food import transactions have expanded in recent decades. Today's episode was produced by Neesan Rai with support from Saurabh Lama, Kushi Hang and Cheron Kungsugar. The episode was recorded at PI Studio and edited by Neves and Rai.

[00:27:13] - [Speaker 0]
Our theme music is courtesy of Rohit Sake from Jindabad. If you'd like today's episode, please subscribe to our podcast. Also, please do us a favor by sharing us on social media and leaving a review on Spotify, Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, or wherever you listen to the show. For PEI's video related content, please search for policy entrepreneurs on YouTube. To catch the latest from us on Nepal's policy and politics, please follow us on Twitter tweet2pei, that's tweet followed by the number two and PEI, and on Facebook at Policy Entrepreneurs Inc.

[00:27:50] - [Speaker 0]
You can also visit pi.center to learn more about us. Thanks once again from me Ridesh. We'll see you soon in our next episode.