This program was introduced because there is not enough place for farming within the metropolis and there is a lack of market for the farmers of other municipalities.
Kathmandu Metropolitan City has introduced the 'Agro Pooling' program to facilitate the sale and distribution of local agricultural products. For this, the 37th city meeting of the metropolis has passed 'Agro Pulling Procedure, 2081' on Sunday.
Vasant Acharya, Information Officer of the Metropolitan Municipality, said that with the passing of the procedure, the metropolis will cooperate with outside municipalities to facilitate the sale and distribution of agricultural and food products produced in the area.
"This is a program under the golden plan approved by the previous Municipal Council of the city," Acharya said, "The procedure was passed." After the verification in a few days, it will be fully implemented. The head of the metropolis, Balendra Shah (Balen), mentioned in the election manifesto that fruits and vegetables will be cultivated on rent on vacant arable land across the country to produce vegetables and for the consumption of the citizens of the metropolis. This program was brought on his own initiative.
Information officer Acharya said that the program was started with the aim of facilitating the people of the city to get quality and fresh food easily at a reasonable price while promoting nature-based agriculture system in collaboration with other municipalities.
What is 'aggro pulling'?
The word agro comes from 'agriculture'. Acharya, the city's information officer, said that this is a project. In this, goods produced in local areas outside Kathmandu are brought to Kathmandu and distributed.
Acharya said that this will encourage local production and make it easy to provide good fruits, fish, meat, pulses and other food items to the consumers of Kathmandu. For this, the metropolis has envisioned the sale and distribution of products produced in the local area by establishing a separate company or through an agricultural cooperative.
It envisages two producers and distributors. The producer organization is outside the Kathmandu metropolis,' he said, 'After that, the distribution organization located in the metropolis will supply the goods collected from the producer within the metropolis.' What is the
procedure? In the
procedure, the functions and roles of the producer organization and the distributor organization are explained. According to this, the producer organization will bring the products produced by the farmers to the distribution organizations in the metropolitan city.
'There will be farmer groups or agricultural cooperatives or company producer organizations that produce food, collect, test quality and transport it in agreement with the local level and supply food to the distribution organization designated by the metropolitan city.' Storage, testing, packaging, labeling and sales distribution of the food will be done. It is mentioned in the procedure that the distributor organization will be an agricultural cooperative or company.
The purpose of this program is to increase coordination between other local levels and Kathmandu metropolis, improve relations, maintain the quality of food provided to consumers and provide it easily. "Wherever the metropolis identifies a special area of food production as a pocket area in other municipalities, and the organization will make an agreement with the local level concerned to produce it there," says information officer Acharya, "that producer organization works in the place where such food is produced. He will collect from all the farmers and send to the distributor.'
The metropolis will make an agreement with the concerned municipality for these procedures. The municipality will enter into an agreement with the producer organization. In addition, Acharya said that the metropolis will contract with the distribution organization within the metropolis. In the
procedure, there is also a provision for the formation of a directorate committee to manage the policy related to agro-pulling. In this, the coordinator of the thematic committee will be the chairman of the committee, three members and the chief member secretary of the agriculture department. This committee will carry the responsibilities of identifying the production area of special food grains necessary for the residents of the city, submitting a proposal to the executive for cooperation with the municipality, making policy arrangements to run the program, and determining the terms of the agreement.
Acharya said that there is not enough space for farming in the metropolis and this program has been brought to deliver whatever is produced directly from the producer to the consumer.
