The world has been reeling under the havoc created by a new disease called Covid-19, originated in Wuhan, China. This pandemic outbreak has become a global disease which is killing millions of the people all around the world and death toll is still raising. Nepal is not an exception to this worldwide pandemic. Located between India and China, it is also highly susceptible to incidents emanating from its neighbouring countries. In Nepal too, Covid-19 is spreading, people infected are also increasing every day in large number. Thus, Nepal Government has imposed lockdown and social distancing from Chaitra 11, 2076to limit the virus transmission.
Covid-19 has led massive consequences in the national economy by affecting every sectors of the country such as health, livelihood of people, education, agriculture, tourism, industries, different offices etc. Everyone is at their home following lockdown, people have returned to the villages from cities, roads are silent, transportation and shops are closed and many people who have gone to abroad for different have returned their home due to Corona. This pandemic has utmost effect in agricultural sector leading to the unavailability of the seeds, fertilizers and pesticides, tool and machineries, and shortage of adequate labour for the cultivation of the crops. Similarly, agricultural products are not getting sold due to problem in transportation and marketing. Hence we can conclude that agricultural productivity is in decreasing trend.
Our country is known as an agricultural country and around 60.4% of the people are dependent in agriculture for food needs, livelihood and employment. Though there are lots of possibilities in agriculture, foods are being imported from different countries. This is, mainly because our country cannot meet food needs of the growing population with agricultural products produced within the country. But due to Corona, all the borders for the imports have been closed. Importing in this situation is really a challenging work. Hence, due to arising food problems in Nepal, food self sufficiency has become a topic of concern during this time.
The term, food self sufficiency, is generally taken to mean the extent to which country can satisfy its own food needs from its own domestic production. At one extreme, it can be defined as a country closing its borders to all food trade both imports and exports and concentrating its resources on agricultural sector so as to be able to produce all of its food requirements domestically. Today’s ultimate need is that country needs to self sufficient in food meeting food requirements of every Nepalese. During this pandemic situation, our immune system becomes weak and people may be easily infected with virus. Thus, if we could produce fresh, quality and healthy food products within our country, we can maintain the health of people. We can minimize starvation problems and food insecurity. Flourishing agriculture in the country can provide employment opportunities to large no. of people. For this we can motivate youth towards agriculture. Different feasible means like SRI, permaculture, bio intensive agriculture etc. can be best option to the farmers. Different innovative farming practices like rooftop gardening, container gardening, backyard gardening etc. can be done by every individual families. We can involve each family members ad utilize this lockdown doing these types of farming Organic agriculture, during this lockdown can be best option for farmers and an initiation to become self sufficient in food from individual level.
In a Nutshell, we can sum up that this havoc of Corona, where everyone and everything is in lockdown, can be takes an opportunity to lead country towards food self sufficiency from individual level by utilizing available resources and family manpower in this time in agriculture for the production of the food within the country.
