Himali food products get no bidders

Kathmandu, Dec. 6: Organic Himali food products, such as rye, buckwheat and beans have failed to take the fancy of urban consumers and suppliers due to lack of their promotion and availability in the markets.

As a result, the Nepal Food Corporation (NFC) is unable to sell 76.56 tons of beans and 30 tons of buckwheat, and a small amount of rye it bought from the people of the high-Himalayan region.

The government-owned NFC has been buying buckwheat, beans and rye to support agro entrepreneurship by creating a demand for these products and employment.

Just as it was preparing to procure fresh beans and buckwheat, it published a tender notice on November 10 to clear its old stock.

According to the NFC, the 21-day tender notice couldn’t attract a single bidder for the food items.

“No one bid to buy the food items. We are, thus, preparing to publish another notice for the same purpose,” said Shreemani Raj Khanal, officiating Director General of the NFC.

He said that the promotional activities for the new products added to the NFC list were insufficient although it occasionally published advertisements, launched mobile shops and sold food items from multiple outlets during the major festival season.

The state-owned corporation has set the price of beans at Rs. 150 per kg, buckwheat at Rs. 90 per kg and rye at Rs. 110 per kg, which is cheaper by almost one-third their retail price in Kathmandu.

There should be more promotional activities and better packaging as well as delivery mechanism to create a demand and market for the Himalayan products that are organic and very good for health, said Khanal.

The NFC is in the process of procuring 35 tons of beans and 14 tons of buckwheat during the current fiscal year 2017/18.

It had planned to procure 20 tons of rye last year but couldn’t collect any.

According to the 2015 data, Nepal produces about 10,870 tons of buckwheat and 37,354 tons of barley annually.

Food experts say that buckwheat contains iron and anti-oxidants, which are good for human health.

Food item	FY 2016/17 (Planned)	FY 2016/17 (Pocured)	FY 2017/18 (Planned)
Beans	80 tons	76.56 tons	35 tons
Buckwheat	33 tons	30 tons	14 tons
Rye	20 tons	-	-

 Source: NFC