NEPAL (19 February)
The preliminary estimate of the 2002 rice harvest, completed in December, is 4.0 million tonnes of paddy (2.6 million tonnes of rice) some 4 percent below the previous year's bumper crop of 4.2 million tonnes. The aggregate output of coarse grains is estimated at 1.8 million tonnes, about the same as the last year’s production. Winter wheat crop currently in the field will be harvested in March 2003. With drier than usual past few months and a month long cold spell in January, the early forecast of the output is set at 1.26 million tonnes, virtually unchanged from the year before.
Floods caused by heavy monsoon rains in northeastern district washed away many farmlands in July subsequently resulting in a sharp decline in crop production and current food shortages in the district. Also severe food shortages are reported in Parbat district in central Nepal requiring food assistance. WFP is providing food assistance to the country’s food sufficiency programmes and to Bhutanese refugees living in camps in Nepal.