Flood Adaptive Rice Cultivation Practice

Rice is the major food staple of Nepal and South Asia. It covers more than 50 per cent of total edible cereal production and about 20 per cent to the Agriculture Domestic Product (AGDP) in Nepal. During 2015/2016, rice crop covered almost 1.3 million ha land in Nepal with the average productivity of 3.3 t/ha. Compared to other rice producing countries, rice production in Nepal is quiet low as it suffers from different constraints of abiotic and biotic stresses, low or poor access to input, poor management, poor irrigation and lack of technical knowledge. Extraordinary geography, poor institutional management capacity and recent trend of climate change have further exacerbated rice production challenges in Nepal. Almost 50 per cent of the area of rice cultivation in Nepal is rain fed, 30 per cent irrigated and 15 per cent is estimated to be affected by flash flood. The rain fed lowland that is prone to drought and seasonal flooding covers 104,720 ha of land. Most climate projections for the region suggest that rainfall is likely to intensify and that extreme events like flood and drought will become even more frequent . So, it is necessary to adopt rice production technology adaptive to submergence (flash flood), one of the major rice production constraints, predicted for the coming years.