Why commercialization is important for Nepalese agriculture 🌾 🍋 🍉 🥕 🥔????

Agriculture in Nepal is being progressive towards commercialization, however, it is still being less than enough.  Although there are many opportunities and need for agriculture to be commercialize, many obstacles and problems such as poor infrastructure, lack of proper technology and poor market facilities are hindering the growth. 

Agricultural commercialization happens only when agricultural enterprises and/or agricultural sector  come as a whole single enterprise and rely on market for selling products. By commercialization of agriculture, agricultural production should require to go 'surplus' and should sell the products in the market rather being consumed in family. It means, production should go beyond the family consumption size. 

There is a great need of agricultural commercialization in Nepal and especially Tarai/plain areas are highly potential for commercialization. In another way, high hills are potential for agro-tourism. Tarai and/or plain areas have higher potential for agri-commercialization because of it's easy access to resources and infrastructures. 

Image: Examples of agricultural commercialization, source: Various internet source

Why agricultural commercialization 🚜 in Nepal?

A. Economic growth 📈

As we all know, agriculture is one of the main GDP contributor i.e. almost 27% in Nepal. However, the contribution can be improved if we can commercialize the agriculture in Tarai regions. Most of our agriculture is still running behind the traditional way with high input Vs Output ratio. However, we can decrease the input and increase output by massive cultivation of crops through mechanization. From the most of the world first class business got success because of massive production, which decrease the input cost and increase output cost and hence increase net return.

B. Enough food 🍕🍖 🍔 support to reduce hunger crisis

Many Nepalese people are still under the line of poverty and hunger. There is no enough access to daily food and nutritional food requirement for these people. Traditional farming system is just subsistence and not producing enough food requirement to all citizens. In another hand, burning issue of land fragmentation is leaving many people with insufficient land and/or in some cases landless. This is also encouraging to create pressure to rest of producers to produce more to cover their daily food requirement. Because of old fashioned agriculture system, our agriculture is not producing enough food for people in other hand, it is creating more pressure in government to import food from neighbour countries.

Commercialization of our existing agriculture system into business and entrepreneur level will help to produce enough food in market.  Hence can support people who are in need for food access. In other hand, commercialization will help to reduce import pressure from foreign countries. 

Surplus production of agricultural products will hence help to provide food to the people who are in need plus can help to solve hunger crisis. The large share of agricultural products in local market from commercialization have direct impact to direct and easy access to food products to marginalized an and poor people. Therefore, will help to reduce the hunger problem in Nepal. 

C. Employment opportunity 👱

The heavy/massive commercialization of agriculture will push it into big business and big entrepreneurship. Once a business system is established, it requires many people to work there. For instance if I wish to establish a big cucumber farm in mechanization level through commercialization, I will definitely need people to work in different areas such as in finance, in farm work, in hiring desk, in cultivation, in harvest and in marketing. Which means, one single agri-business can consume many local people in employment. It will simply reduce unemployment rate plus give people an source of income. Indirectly, the employed people will tend to have a capacity to get nutritional food than unemployed people, therefore it agri-commercialization could be helpful to support people's health in this way. 

Unemployment rate in Nepal is significantly increasing year by year, coming to 2019 it was 1.4% and poverty rate is about 25%. This is a huge problem in our country. Therefore, there is necessity to have a big industry that can capture unemployed people and to reduce the poverty. In Nepal, where most of the people are engaged in agriculture which mean, people already know the value of agriculture. Therefore, there is great opportunity for agri-commercialization plus once it got established it will definitely help for employment and help to reduce the poverty as well.

D. Exporting food and exchange foreign income💱

We can commercialize the agriculture either in a particular crop and/or the integrated way. We can then create the own product brand such as Sunrise rice in Australia, which is famous and popular rice brand Australiawide. Branding the products for either single product and/or multiple products in qualitative way is another opportunity to explore it throughout the nation first. Once the product recognize as better and/or best quality products then producers can have opportunity to export worldwide. Hence, then it would help to recognize product, industry and then help to increase net return from foreign trading. 

Net return and/or income is directly linked with tax and then GDP. In addition, income and return always reflect in personal development, health support and better family support. In this way, agri-commercialization will have opportunity for exporting food in foreign country and can import foreign income. 

Some examples of agri-commercialization and trading agriculture products from Nepal are tea and coffee. These industries are known and recognized as best quality test than others. Therefore, in similar way we can commercialize our cereals, vegetables, meat and fisheries, wool and floriculture in nepal. 

In other hand, we have data to support that Nepal is importing heavy amount of food from foreign country. It mean that, we are depending heavily on importing food to support our daily requirement. It would be another great opportunity to reduce import amount and can save our money being exchanging to foreign countries. 

E. Infrastructure 🏭 development 

It is well known fact that the area having big industry and business is used to get developed quickly. It is because that, the industry need to have wide access of road for transporting goods, plus it require a lot of physical materials such as concrete and other items to build that industry. Furthermore, the employee of that industry used to get accomodate, used to have food from local market. Therefore, is is always require to have well developed site before establishing and/or after establishing the industry. Therefore, once we have big agri-industry in commercialized level and if it is well mechanized, then the are where is it established would likely to be developed. Big industry will continuously require energy supply such as electricity, there should be enough access to resources such as water etc. Which mean the local community in the are of industry would likely to have easy and enough access to resource. In this way agri-commercialization would help to develop the community as well. 

Therefore, to overcome our heavy dependency on importing food from foreign countries, to improve economic growth, to reduce unemployment, to develop local community, to export our brand and product, to import foreign income we need to commercialize Nepalese agriculture. This is the best way to solve aforementioned problems in Nepalese agriculture. 

Lets put hand together✋ to solve Nepalese agriculture problem through commercialization and mechanization.