Prakash Ghimire¹*, Padam Adhikari² and Basu Dev Kaphle^2
1Vegetable Crop Development Centre, Khumaltar, Lalitpur, Nepal
²National Center for Potato, Vegetable and Spice Crops Development, Kirtipur, Nepal
*Corresponding author's email: prasri.me99@gmail.com
*ORCID iD: 0000-0001-9154-

Abstract

Nepal's vegetable sector has experienced significant growth over the past sixty years due to population expansion,
economic progress and use of improved technology. The sector has seen notable improvements in policy
development, institutional development and technology generation and transfer. However, the contribution of
vegetables, horticultural specialties and nursery products to the country's GDP has only increased minimally.
Despite this, there has been a substantial increase in the cultivation area, production and yield of vegetables since
the initial fiscal year of the study period. Additionally, there has been a significant reduction in the gap percentage
between vegetable seed demand and production. Although the pandemic hindered target production in 2020/21,
different farms were able to exceed their seed and seedling production targets from 2016/17 to 2019/20.
Furthermore, there has been a slight decrease in vegetable imports in FY 2018/19, with increased exported
vegetable quantity found in several previous years. Overall study shows that there is increasing trend in the area and
production of vegetable over the years, however, the rate of increment is very low as compared to its potentiality.
Despite various approaches adopted in the vegetable sector development, a focused strategy on inclusive
commercialization is necessary to optimize investment for the growth of the