With a prolonged dry spell gripping the Tarai-Madhes region—widely known as the country’s food basket, paddy transplantation has fallen drastically behind schedule. As of Saturday, only 52 percent of the paddy area in Madhes Province has been transplanted, compared to 92 percent at the same time last year. The shortage of drinking water and slow transplantation rate of paddy, Nepal’s main crop, forced the government to declare Madhes a crisis-hit region. With this, the government is taking urgent measures to improvise drinking water availability and mitigate potential food insecurity.
The government has formed a taskforce comprising joint secretaries from the agriculture, drinking water, and energy, water resources and irrigation to assess the situation and recommend immediate interventions. The team is currently evaluating weather forecasts and feasibility of continuing paddy plantation in the coming days. If rain does not arrive within the next 9-10 days, officials say the government will encourage farmers to cultivate alternative crops.
Paddy transplantation will not be available in Madhes after the first week of August. In case Madhes does not receive rainfall by that time, officials have identified millet as a primary substitute crop due to its resilience in dry conditions. Along with millet, the government also plans to encourage farmers to grow low-water vegetables and legumes such as black gram, green gram and soybeans on unused land to salvage some production this season. The concerned government agencies are preparing the necessary budget to support this transition.
According to the agriculture ministry, 78.84 percent of the total 1.33m hectares of paddy fields have been transplanted by Saturday. However, transplantation has reached only 52 percent of 372,645 hectares in Madhes.
In response to the escalating crisis, Minister of Energy, Water Resources and Irrigation Deepak Khadka, convened a high-level emergency meeting earlier this week. In the meeting, he instructed officials to prepare a 15-day emergency action plan to provide drinking water and irrigation facilities to affected communities in all eight districts of Madhes Province. “Bypass bureaucratic hurdles, skip tender delays and use all legal means to deliver relief immediately to the affected communities,” Khadka told officials. He instructed officials to deploy deep boring wells, solar-powered water pumps, mobile motor sets and temporary pipelines to address urgent irrigation needs.
Paddy production in Madhesh went up by 10.70 percent to 1.48m tons in the previous season. Madhes is home to about a quarter of paddy fields across the country.
