The District Agriculture Development Office (DADO), Dhading, has launched a 10-year Prime Minister Agriculture Modernisation Project starting this fiscal year to boost the agriculture productivity in the district. The project aims to provide technical help and financial subsidy to the farmers in the district to make commercial production of the various agricultural produces sustainable.  

The office plans to spend Rs 19.2 million within this fiscal year under the project under. It will establish 25 pocket areas under two main blocks for commercial farming of different agricultural products, according to the Keshav Devkota, senior agriculture development officer of DADO, Dhading. 

A total of 37 farmer groups have so far filed applications at DADO to establish the pocket areas for different agricultural projects. They have applied for the commercial farming of vegetables, banana, lemon, large cardamom, paddy, maize and bee keeping, among others. 

Out of 37, DADO will select 25 applications for 25 pocket areas each of them specialising on one product. Each pocket area should sprawl across at least 200 ropanies of farm land. 

DADO has also identified different regions of the district to make pocket areas of different products. For example, it is planning to develop maize plantation at Maidi and Dhading Besi and has allotted Rs 8.6 million for the purpose. Similarly, it has identified the northern part of the district for the potato production.

“We will form separate executive committees for both blocks, including farmers and the project will be selected by the same committees after meticulous planning within the committee,” said Devekota. 

The district has already gained popularity for vegetable and fish production but with the implementation of new project, DADO is planning to develop crops like maize and potato. 

The government has recently launched Rs130billion Prime Minister Agriculture Modernisation Project, which envisages adopting modern farm techniques to boost productivity, and making the country self-reliant in food.

As per the plan, the government will be creating 2,100 pocket areas of 10 hectares each, 150 blocks of 100 hectares each, 30 zones of 500 hectares each and seven super zones of 1,000 hectares each to bolster the agriculture productivity of the country. 

Under the super zones, Jhapa will be promoted for paddy, Bara for fish, Kaski for vegetables, Kavrepalanchok for potato, Dang for maize, Jumla for apple and Kailali for wheat.

The government will implement the project under a private-cooperative-group partnership model. The government has aimed at achieving self-sufficiency in wheat and vegetables by this fiscal year, and in paddy and potato in two years.

The government has targeted making the country self-sufficient in maize and fish by the next three years and in fruits like bananas, papaya and litchi by four years. By its end, the project envisages becoming self-sufficient in fruits like kiwi, apple and orange.