WHY THERE ARE MORE IMPORTS?

50 years ago, Nepal's potential was in agriculture. there were no Industries, Factories, Business in my grandfather's time. there were no jobs no foreign enployment. therefore involvment of majority people were only in agriculture. Back then the cost of prduction was low and profit was high. thats how the pottential of agriculture was back then 50 years ago. and we used to export many things to India also to Bangladesh we used to export slippers.

From there we could not gradually change it. we should have turned that tradiatational agriculture practice into value adding agriculture like Ethopia did. In 1992 Ethopia focuse its first 4 years on agriculture sector after their constitution, similarly Bangladesh, a land of Famine (vokmari ko desh) in 1972. now the are self sufficient in food. they dont need to import. Incase of Nepal we didnt change anything to our traditational agriculture, we didnot add any value in agriculture. we were more depend on monsoon crops hence, we couldnot increase the productivity.

Today we are importing lemons that cost around Rs 600 per kg. the fact is that Nepal is the best place for growing lemons.

If you look back at the productivity, China is the best. Second best is Bangladesh. Thirs best is Punjab in India. Productivity in Punjab is high so the farmers ride Benz motors. In out contex farmers dont have money to buy basic tools.

Therefore what i think is, we didnt change our tradational practive of agriculture and crops and the majority peopl's habit is to eat Rice and the fact is that the production of rice is the most time consuming crop. once you play the mud and harvest it then you leave the land for rest 6 month. on other hand, look at the vegitable agriculture, it makes more financial stable to the farmers. we didnt choose to move this path insted.

Country should gradually focus on export items like Avacado, Apples, Lemons, Coffee. there are more like that. This way we missed the golden opportinuty from agriculture 50 years ago.