A Brief insight of National Agriculture Census 2011/12

Despite a common and strong belief among all and sundry that agriculture is unpopular and is blue colored job, Nepal has added nearly half million new farming households in last 10 years from 2001-2011. The increase in farming household has been claimed in National Agriculture Census 2011/12, CBS.

What does this suggest? (Lets think)

According to the report, there are 3.831 million farming household in country with 2.525 million hectares of agricultural land. The average size of holding being 0.68 ha as compared to 0.80 ha in 2001/02. Morang, Jhapa, Sarlahi, Siraha and Sunsari are top 5 districts based on agriculture area while Manang, Mustang, Dolpa, Rasuwa and Humla are last 5 districts.

 Farming sector has been reported to employ 20.55 million people out of national population of 26.49 million contributing 38% (approx) in National GDP. The participation of female number to head the household jumped 19% in 2011/12 from 8.1% in last census.

The irrigation coverage has reached 53.14% of total land holdings; rivers/lakes/Ponds accounts 48% of irrigation system, tube wells and borings accounts 30%, dams and reservoirs with 16% and others accounting 6%. Bara has largest area under irrigation that is 92% followed by Rautahat(92%), Sunsari (90%), Kailali (90%) and Kanchanpur(89%).

More importantly, about 60% of farm households have reported that their annual production not sufficient to the meet the annual food consumption(In case like this how can agriculture be a glorified job).

As matter of farm mechanization; 22.04% use tractor, 20.96% use thresher and 28.01 % still use conventional iron plow.

Only 21.8% of household in the country have access to agri loans. It has been reported that 37% borrow from relatives, 17% from cooperatives, 14% from womens group, 13% from ADB, 10% from Farmers Group, and 9% from Financial Institutions.

Potato	Spice crops	Oil seed crops	Other cash crops
Dolkha	Illam	Dang	Sarlahi
Kavre	Makwanpur	Nawalparasi	Sunsari
Illam	Morang	Chitwan	Rautahat
Bara	Sunsari	Rupandehi	Mahottari
Jhapa	Jhapa	Morang	Nawalparasi

Table: Top 5 districts with maximum area under different crops

For pdf version of  detailed National Agriculture Census 2011/12 click here and click here