<p style="margin: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #000000;">Nepal celebrates the 20th National Paddy Day and Paddy Cultivation Festival today. <span style="color: #222222;">India continues to be the largest rice exporter of rice to Nepal</span> Planting paddy, eating delicacies like curd and beaten rice, participating in traditional cultural programmes, and merriment in paddy fields are the major attractions of the day. The government aims to attain self-sufficiency in rice production by conserving the land for paddy cultivation, promoting clean and healthy seeds, expanding irrigation facilities, and developing hybrid and disease-resistant varieties.</span></p>''<p style="margin: 0px; text-align: justify;"><br />''</p>''<p style="margin: 0px; text-align: justify;"><br />''</p>''<p style="margin: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #000000;">Paddy is cultivated on 47 per cent of the total cultivable land in Nepal. Likewise, Prime Minister of Nepal Pushpa Kamal Dahal 'Prachanda' has extended best wishes to all on this day stating that the government has been implementing different programmes including expansion of irrigation supply, grants on chemical fertiliser and seeds, expansion of modern technology, research and development, among others to increase the production of paddy. PM Dahal has emphasized the need for the development of climate-resilient paddy species and the development of new technology to increase paddy production to prevent rice and paddy import.</span></p>''<p style="margin: 0px; text-align: justify;"><br />''</p>''<p style="margin: 0px; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #000000;">In November 2022, India allowed 600,000 tonnes of unmilled rice to be exported to Nepal. The majority of packaged Basmati Rice in Nepal is imported from India.</span></p>