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VOL. 28, NO. 19, Jan 16, 2009 (Magh 03 2065 B.S.)
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Growing Concern
Despite worsening food security situation in Nepal, the story is being neglected by the media
By A CORRESPONDENT
With the growing population and shrinking agricultural land, Nepal is to face huge deficit of food supply in coming days in case of any major global food crisis like the one on fuel crisis. Although Nepal turned from a net exporter of food stuffs to a net importer now, there are enormous challenges ahead.
Although Nepal has been passing through critical situation, Nepal's media is yet to feel about this challenge and write story on various aspects of these issues. One of the challenges for media persons around the country is the difficulty to understand technical and economic sides of the issue. Trade, intellectual property rights and food security- which are highly technical issues – are related to each other.
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Food Product : Short supply |
Organized by South Asia Watch on Trade, Economics and Environment (SAWTEE), ActionAid Nepal and Local Initiatives for Biodiversity Research and Development (Li-Bird), the two day Media Workshop on Trade, Intellectual Property Rights and Food Security was the first of its kind seminar where media persons from all over the country and experts sat together and discussed the matters related to food security.
With 31 percent of the population living below the poverty line, ensuring food security is vital for the improvement of people's livelihood in rural as well as urban areas in the country.
According to experts, Nepal's food production growth rate remains very low, even not enough to feed the growing number of population. The annual population growth and food production growth is almost similar. Thus, it is a vulnerable situation that can trigger panic in case of any major international crisis.
Global technological activities as well as bilateral, regional and multilateral trade regimes are also affecting the present situation. According to SAWTEE, the issues concerning trade, and the application of biotechnology and intellectual property rights regime in agriculture and biodiversity are also important as they have severe implications for agriculture growth, sustainable development as well as the realization and implementation of farmers' rights over their resources and associated knowledge.
"The current global economic recession will have very long term implications for the country's overall economic growth. It will affect the remittances and foreign currency reserve making it difficult to strike trade balance," said Professor Bishwambher Pyakuryal.
The two-day workshop included eight sessions where journalists and experts interacted on various contemporary issues related to trade, intellectual property rights and food security. Chaired by Yamuna Ghale, senior Program officer, Swiss Development Cooperation, the speakers discussed on a paper presented by Y.B. Thapa, agriculture specialist.
Similarly, moderated by Professor Bishwambher Pyakuryal, president of Nepal Economic Association, media persons interacted on the paper presented by Dr. Gayatri Acharya, economist at the World Bank on "Lessons from Global Crisis and Policy and Institutional Challenges for Ensuring Food Security in Nepal."
Similarly Dr. Shridhar Khatri, executive director, South Asia Center for Policy Studies, presented the paper on SAARC Initiatives on Food Security: Nepal's Priorities and Challenges.
The papers presented on second day were more technical and related to the present bio-technologies and their implications on the food security. Chaired by Dr. Madhusudan Upadhyaya, Plant Genetic Resources Expert, Agriculture Botany Division, National Agriculture Research Council (NARC), Abhiskar Subedi, senior program officer, Li-bird presented community- based initiatives on Agriculture Biodiversity Management for Food Security in Nepal.
Similarly, Kamalesh Adhikari, research director SAWTEE, presented the paper on Implications of Intellectual Property Rights for Agriculture Bio-diversity Management and Food Security.
Chaired by Dr. Posh Raj Pandey, president SAWTEE, and former member of National Planning Commission, Dr. Krishna Prasad Pant, senior program officer, National Agricultural Research and Development Fund presented the paper on Bio-technology, bio-fuels, agriculture trade and Food Security.
"The use of food stuffs to produce bio-fuels will have challenges for the food security. As more food is used to produce bio-fuels , there will be less food to eat. Thanks to the use of soybean and maize by various developed countries, the food security situation has worsened," said Dr. Pandey.
Although there are several issues related to food security, the challenges for media persons is to write technical issues in the general language. "These kinds of interactions will help to widen the coverage of food security issues," said Dr. Bimal Phuyal, country director, ActionAid Nepal.
