Sipadol village in Bhaktapur district in Central Nepal just a year apart between 2022 to 2023. Photo by Amit Machamasi. Used with permission.

This story was originally published by Nepali Times. An edited version is republished on Global Voices as part of a content-sharing agreement.

Kathmandu Valley, once known for its bumper harvests of rice, has seen declining production because urban expansion is devouring once-fertile rice fields.

There are still some terraces on the outskirts of the city that have rice fields, but even these are threatened by new settlements. The same is true of Pokhara Valley, home to Pokhreli, Jetha Buda and other brands of indigenous rice.

The middle of Asar (the third month of the Nepali calendar) is time for rice planting, and June 29 was supposed to be National Paddy Plantation Day. It is a festival not just for transplanting paddy seedlings on water-logged fields, but also for jubiliation and merrymaking.

This year, there was not much to celebrate on Paddy Planting Day. Only 10 percent of farms across Nepal have transplanted paddy seedlings, whereas the normal figure for late June is double that.

An excavator makes way for land plotting even as a child prepares to plant rice saplings in Bhaktapur's Sipadol village. Photo by Amit Machamasi. Used with permission.

The monsoon has been starting weeks later than its usual mid-June arrival in Nepal, which many experts blame on climate breakdown. This year, the rains actually arrived a week early in the aftermath of Cyclone Remal (May 24–28), and unleashed floods and landslides in eastern Nepal in mid-June, while the western half of the country was enduring a prolonged drought.

The clouds did advance up to central Nepal, but the rains fizzled out, prolonging the drought. When the monsoon did arrive in Kathmandu Valley on June 27, it was too little too late. Kathmandu Valley usually receives 250 milimeters of rain in June, this year the figure so far has been only 125 millimetres, which could have significant ramifications for the growing season and water access.

The chronic lack of subsidised fertiliser during the planting season due to inefficient government procurement and delivery mechanisms also meant that many farmers were not ready to transplant paddy even if the rains came.

Rice is grown in Kathmandu and other mountain valleys, in the Tarai region and up to 3,200 meters in Jumla district, which is famous for its nutritious red Marasi rice.

The Tarai is Nepal’s rice basket, producing most of its paddy. Although the plains cover 15 percent of Nepal’s area, 53 percent of the population lives there. Here too, settlements along highways and major intersections are eating into rice fields.

Kathmandu's unrestrained growth as seen from Halchowk area in 2020. Photo by Amit Machamasi. Used with permission.

So far this year, rice planting has started in only three percent of the area of Madhes Province because of the delayed rains and a prolonged heatwave. The province produces a quarter of Nepal’s rice in a normal year.

The western Tarai has been particularly badly hit by a heatwave that lasted into June with daytime temperatures soaring to 45 degrees Celsius (115 degrees Fahrenheit) and staying there. Rainfed farms have not planted rice, and those that used to pump water from tube wells have not been able to do so because of a falling water table.

Outmigration from rural areas and falling rice production have become a chicken-or-egg problem: Is rice production falling because people are turning away from farming, or is declining paddy production driving people away from agriculture?

In this photo from 2021, hills in the outskits of Kathmandu Valley have been cleared for land development. Photo by Amit Machamasi. Used with permission.

The annual Rice Day has therefore become not a time for celebration, but a reminder Nepal's newfound dependence on rice imports.

Nepal spent NPR 35 billion (USD 262 million) in 2023 to import rice and paddy, which was a slight decline from the previous year but is still more than all its exports. Nepalis are eating more rice than ever before as people turn away from traditional grains like millet and buckwheat, and because of a falling poverty rate as well as the spread of the road network.

Still, the country’s population growth rate is outpacing the increase in rice harvests. Rice productivity has hit an all-time high of 3.8 tons/hectare with irrigation and mechanisation, but total production is not increasing as much because of a decrease in area under rice cultivation.

Nepal once used to be a rice-exporting country. If current trends continue, Nepal will be spending nearly everything it earns from remittances on importing petroleum products and rice.