The National Paddy Plantation Day, which falls on the 15th of the Nepali month Ashadh, was observed across the country with much fanfare on Sunday.

Ministers, lawmakers, various organisations and individuals flocked to the fields to plant paddy saplings.

People clad in clean shirts and trousers planted paddy in the fields and ate Dahi-chiura (curd with beaten rice) to mark the occasion.

Such programmes are organised every year; and amidst grand functions ‘guests’ deliver speeches underscoring the need for agricultural development and upliftment of the farming community in Nepal.

Though the National Paddy Plantation Day was launched in several places with much enthusiasm, the ground reality is quite different. Farmers are worried, for the monsoon arrived late and it hasn’t rained enough for their fields to be ready for paddy plantation.

More than 50 percent land in the Tarai districts of Province 5 is still fallow. Due to a lack of irrigation facility, farmers are waiting for more rain so that they can plant paddy saplings.

According to Birendra Raj Parajuli, chief of paddy super zone, paddy production in Bardiya will plunge by 50 percent if it does not rain enough in the next few days. Paddy is generally planted in around 50,500 hectares of land in Bardiya.

“We have prepared paddy saplings. But the plantation has yet to begin as it has not rained enough,” said Dipak Thapa, a farmer of Khajura Rural Municipality in Banke district.