Agribusiness in Nepal

The consumption of cut flowers in the world is worth US$ 13,000 million. The main importers are the USA, Germany, France, UK, Switzerland, Sweden,Norway, the Netherlands, Denmark, Belgium, Italy, Australia, and Japan. Germany is the largest importer, followed by the US, France and Britain. Among the exporters , the Netherlands dominates the world trade (65%), followed by Columbia (12%) and Israel (6%). Thailand holds  sixth position in export of cut flowers (Prasad and Kumar, 2005).In present context  Half of the flowers produced in the world is consumed by western Europe alone and a large expansion in flower consumption is taking place in Eastern Europe,Japan, China, South Korea, Thailand and Indonesia. Kathmandu valley is the central of Cut flower business in Nepal . The localization is mainly due to access to consumer-orientation and favorable natural conditions. The establishment of such industries takes place wherever consumers with sufficient purchasing powers ...

A.G. Howard, one of the pioneers of organic agriculture observed farming in India for many years and established   the theory of organic agriculture. The theory provokes for the sustainable farming through balancing the soil by recycling organic materials back to the soil i.e. resource-cycle farming which existed in Asia for over a thousand years. However, modern agriculture has been focusing an economic efficiency without giving much attention on environment. Without doubt; such pursuits followed side effects and the green revolution is one of the example (Murayma, 2001). Evidences from all over the world shows that the organic farming has increased the crop yield by doubled or trippled in land where resources are poor, diverse and complex. In irrigated condition, if maintained the yield. While, in the industrialized agricultural system, transition to sustainable agriculture could decrease the production per hectare by 10-20% in short form, but provides better level of fin...

The eradication of poverty is the biggest challenge faced by policy makers in Nepal. Poverty is increasingly concentrated among small farmers and agricultural labourers (WB, 2006). Present socio-economic structure of the country reveals that land is the main property and source of income for the majority of Nepalese people. Land reform is important also in the context of incipient industrial and commercial sectors which at present cannot cater for the rapidly growing population. In this respect, increase in agricultural productivity through secure access to land can potentially be one of the most effective approaches to alleviate rural poverty. Over the last decade aggregate poverty reduced significantly from 42% to 31%. However, the decline was slow in rural areas compared to urban areas and is still high at 35% (WB, 2006). Whilst overall growth increased and overall poverty reduced, the Gini coefficient increased from 34.2 to 41.4, indicating a rise in inequality as the growth...