The Bagmati Province government has allocated Rs 150 million in the next year's budget to provide interest subsidies of up to 6 percent to small and subsistence farmers.
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The Bagmati Province Government has given special priority to the interest subsidy program to attract small and subsistence farmers towards commercialization through the budget for the upcoming fiscal year 2083/084.
The Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock Development has allocated a total of Rs 150 million in the first phase, with the provincial government bearing the interest of up to 6 percent for farmers who have taken agricultural loans of up to Rs 1 million through banks.
Under this program, Rs 70 million has been allocated for agriculture and Rs 80 million for the animal husbandry sector, covering both small farmers and livestock farmers. The government expects that this will provide relief to small-investment farmers and create more enthusiasm in them.
In a coordination meeting with provincial-level stakeholders organized by the Central Dairy Cooperative Association Limited in Hetauda, the capital of Bagmati Province, Minister for Agriculture and Livestock Development Madhusudan Poudel expressed his belief that the interest subsidy program will provide a great incentive for rural farmers in a subsistence situation to convert to commercial agriculture.
Emphasizing that there should be integrated efforts from all sectors to solve the various problems currently seen in the agricultural sector, he said that there is a plan to establish agriculture and livestock offices in all districts of the province from the coming fiscal year and to operate both offices in the same format in districts with small areas.
Clarifying that the government has also continued production-based subsidies, he expressed his commitment that the provincial government will continue to work on enhancing the capacity of farmers despite the technical complexity in setting certain standards to measure the actual production of other agricultural products compared to milk.
In the meeting, Secretary of the Ministry Sudhir Shrestha said that although the size of the overall annual budget of the ministry has decreased slightly compared to previous years, a significant budget has been allocated by understanding the sensitivity and economic importance of the dairy sector.
In the coordination meeting, which was attended by leaders of the dairy cooperative sector and various stakeholders, the technical aspects of the 'Milky Way' program run in partnership with the Central Dairy Cooperative Association and Heifer Project Nepal, and the current situation of production, quality and consumption of dairy products in the province were discussed. The meeting also highlighted the immense potential of milk production and domestic consumption in Bagmati Province and formed a multi-stakeholder forum at the provincial level for the qualitative development of the sector.
Concluding that the dairy sector can make a decisive contribution to improving the national economy, reducing rural poverty, and socio-economic transformation of farmers, the participants expressed the need for strong collaboration and government facilitation between the provincial government and cooperatives to make farmer-centric programs like ‘Milk Way’ more effective.
