One such festival is Ropain- the rice planting festival, which is celebrated on Ashar Pandhra (fifteenth day of Ashar). On this day, crop planting season officially begins in Nepal.

Rice is planted between the last week of June to the first week of July and is then harvested in mid-November.

Nepali farmers go to their fields to begin paddy plantation on this day. They joyfully indulge in the plantation, which they accompany with singing, dancing and mud splashing.

The farmer community also makes the traditional Dahi-Chiura specific to Ropain and several other traditional snacks.

Tourists visiting Nepal gleefully learn and indulge in the plantation process and also participate in the proceedings of the farmer festival.

This year Ropain is being celebrated on June 30, 2019 of the Georgian calendar. Have you booked your tickets to Nepal already?

Nepali Sansar wishes all the farmers a prosperous rice festival.

The post Nepal Observes Ropain Rice Festival 2019 appeared first on Nepali Sansar.

As a result, Nepali farmers are preparing to harvest the largest-ever paddy crop in this fiscal year, said the Nepali Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock Development (MoA&LD).

According to the Ministry Secretary Yubak Dhoj GC, this year’s paddy harvest is expected to reach 5.66 million tons, showing a 10 percent year-on-year growth.

Officials state that this record harvest is going to curtail the rice import bill and also contribute to government’s overall economic growth target.

GC further informed that paddy transplantation was successful in more than 95 percent of the country’s 1 1.55 million hectares of rice fields in this fiscal.

With regard to supporting raw material, none of the key paddy-producing areas, especially the country’s food basket Tarai, reported shortage of chemical fertilizers.

Due to timely and regular monsoon, productivity has increased. There were no disease outbreaks and floods either. At the same time, we expect the country will be removed from the food deficit list this year   –  Yubak Dhoj GC, Ministry of Agriculture, Nepal

He further stated that this progress in the agriculture sector will help Nepal Government to achieve its 8 percent economic growth target, given the fact that the country is largely agriculture-dependent i.e. worth NPR 3 trillion.

So, monsoons mean a lot for the country as only 30 percent of its farmland currently has round-the-year irrigation facility.

“If we can increase the round-the-year irrigation coverage to 80 percent of the land, we can potentially produce around 10 million tons of paddy annually,” says the Secretary.

While the country’s monsoon season is from June-September, there was an early arrival this year two days prior to the regular case.

The harvest in this fiscal is going to be an encouragement and recovery from the previous year’s number that took a hit due to severe floods in August 2017 in around 31 districts.

It was lastly in 2016-17 that the country saw its record harvest of 5.23 million tons and is eagerly waiting for its new high of 5.66 million tons!

The post Nepal Expects Record Agri Harvest in 2018-19 appeared first on Nepali Sansar.