Will ADS be another APP

Agricultural Perspective Plan (APP) is still supposed to be one of the best policy papers developed by the country but the bitter fact beholds that the plan did not work, to be harsh- it failed. Why did that happen? There is no one reason to explain the unsatisfactory work of the APP, but above all I would not step back to blame the fragile legislation and bureaucracy for the same as others do. Few of the objectives that made APP wonderful were: to accelerate the growth rate in agriculture through increased factor productivity; to alleviate poverty and achieve significant improvement in the standard of living through accelerated growth and expanded employment opportunities; to transform the subsistence-based agriculture into a commercial one through diversification and widespread realization of comparative advantage. What lacked in presence of such wonderful objectives were the 3I- Implementation, Intention and Institutionalization.

Coming towards the end of Agriculture Perspective Plan started the Agriculture Development Strategy (ADS). Let’s have a glance at the key aspects of Agriculture Development Strategy. Accelerate investment in Science and Technology. Invest in the Knowledge Triangle: research, education, and extension; Ensure broad-based and inclusive agricultural growth. Invest in programs to moderate social and geographic inequalities; Integrate smallholder farmers with competitive value chains; Promote rural infrastructure and rural agro-enterprises. Again the features look very encouraging and achievable but taking into account the previous execution of the plan, it looks very difficult. With this statement I don’t want to discourage our policy-makers but interestingly, the challenges again remain the same: 3I- Implementation, Intention and Institutionalization.

Because of the fragile and unstable political system and bureaucracy, implementation of most of the policies in the country has become tedious. And it’s not only about the policies, many infrastructural projects happen to suffer the similar manias. Intention is yet another factor which stands tall as a hurdle in the non-hurdle race of the agriculture development. Intention and Implementation are closely related because once intended, both policies and projects can be led to the stage of implementation. Institutionalization is the broadest and the most important challenge of all. APP talked about transforming the subsistence agriculture to the commercial one through trade diversification and application of comparative advantage whereas ADS talks about integrating smallholder farmers with the competitive value chain but what is not understood is that do these targets not need standardized warehouses in their chain? Shouldn’t the warehouses of Nepal Food Corporation, which are indoor games venue now, be brought into use? Where is the role of insurance companies which assigns value to the farm products and I also do not see the strategy mentioning about the agro-commodity exchanges which formalize the trade throughout the globe? Finally, the bank that has to look after all these financial transactions is silent.

Its high time policy makers avoid developing another APP!

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