Biratnagar, Mar  25: Morang district with an area of 1,855 square kilometres has been recording increase in agricultural production over the last few years.

The increase is due mainly to active initiative taken by agricultural technicians and farmers of the district in keeping with a 20-year agricultural policy introduced by the HMG Ministry of Agriculture, according to the Morang statistics office.

The district is divided into 65 VDCs and one sub-metropolitan corporation. Eight VDCs are located in the hill area, three in inner Tarai and 54 in VDCs in Tarai areas.

Playing a prominent role in agricultural sector, particularly paddy, wheat and vegetable farming, Morang produced 230,510 metric tons of paddy in the fiscal year 1998-99 as against 226, 733 metric tons in 1997-98.

According to the statistics office, winter paddy is grown on 10,000 hectares and summer paddy on 87,890 hectares in the district.

It produced 32,890 metric tons wheat on 14,950 hectares and 26,858 metric tons maize on 14,500 hectares in the fiscal year 1998-99.

Their production the year before figured at 32,200 metric tons and 23,252 metric tons respectively. Besides, 1,475 metric tons of millet was also produced particularly in northern Morang last fiscal year.

Fruit production, which comes second to its grain production, was estimated at 5,415 metric tons last fiscal year (as against 4,563 metric tons a year before), while winter and summer fruit production in that years stood at 57,806 metric tons as against 53,288 metric tons a year before).