Share of research budget in agriculture decreasing

KATHMANDU, Apr 5: At a time when policymakers and planners are talking about transforming the country’s agriculture sector from a subsistence level to a commercial scale, ironically, the share of research budget in total agriculture has been dropping gradually every year since 2010-11.

Though the government has been allocating more budget to the Ministry of Agricultural Development (MoAD) every fiscal since the last five years, spending on agricultural research has been decreasing every year.

As per the planning division of MoAD, share of research budget is about 7.63 per cent of the total agriculture budget for the current fiscal 2014-15, whereas such share accounted for about 10 per cent of the total agriculture budget in fiscal 2010-11.

The volume of the budget allocated to MoAD, however, is increasing.