Assessing Fruit and Vegetable Self-Sufficiency in Nepal: Historical Trends, Forecasts and Policy Implications

Abstract

Nepal’s goal of achieving self-sufficiency in fruits and vegetables, as outlined in the Sixteenth Periodic Plan (2024-2029), conflicts with the country’s growing imports, which exceeded USD 439 million in 2024 and have continued to climb. This paper analyzed 19 years of FAOSTAT and MoALD data (2004–2023) on production, consumption, cultivated area, yield, and trade, and used an ARIMA model to forecast the self sufficiency gap through 2030. We studied where growth comes from (more land vs. higher productivity) and assessed whether import prices are higher or lower than usual international market prices. Vegetables are imported at an average price of USD 343 per tonne, compared with the reported global benchmark range of USD 500–800 per tonne. This suggests that differences in agricultural support policies and informal cross-border trade may contribute to the observed price disparities. Fruit yields are growing at a statistically significant but very slow rate (0.42%) per year. However, because the cultivated area is increasing at a higher rate (4.01%) per year, production is increasing at 5.42% per year. As a result, fruit import dependence is expected to fall from 11.6% in 2024 to 5.9% in 2030, reducing annual import expenditure from USD 110 million in 2024 to USD 63 million in 2030. The vegetable sector shows a worsening situation, as the vegetable supply gap (Domestic supply - Production) is projected to reach 501,807 t by 2030, up from 388,730 t in 2024, and the import bill is expected to increase from 133.2 million USD in 2024 to 172.1 million USD in 2030. The findings indicate that while fruit self-sufficiency is expected to improve, vegetable supply deficits are expected to widen, highlighting the need to strengthen domestic vegetable production to improve long-term food security.