Author: Alisha Adhikari
Puddling Field for Spring Rice Transplantation
Photo by: Alisha Adhikari
As winter fades and temperatures begin to rise across the plains of Nepal, farmers are once again preparing their fields for Chaite dhan/Spring rice across terai and inner terai, the spring rice crop cultivated during the dry season. Fields are being ploughed, nurseries are being prepared, and irrigation channels are ready in many parts of the country as farmers begin the process of spring rice cultivation.
Grown between February and June, spring rice is often associated with higher yield potential and better sunlight conditions compared to the main monsoon rice (Regmi et al., 2023). However, unlike monsoon rice that benefits from seasonal rainfall, the success of Chaite dhan depends almost entirely on irrigation as the crop is grown during the dry months when rainfall is minimal, making reliable irrigation essential for land preparation, transplanting, and crop growth. Despite its production advantages, spring rice remains underutilized in Nepal, largely due to persistent challenges in accessing adequate and timely irrigation.
Importance of Chaite Dhan in Nepal’s Context?
Rice is the major staple food in Nepal, forming the backbone of both the national diet and agricultural production. Despite this, the country continues to import large quantities of rice every year to meet domestic demand. According to FAOSTAT data, about 0.34 million tons of rice were imported into Nepal in 2024. In this context, Chaite dhan presents an important opportunity to increase domestic rice production. Spring rice often has higher productivity than monsoon rice, with yields reaching around 5 mt/ha compared to about 4 mt/ha for monsoon rice in FY 2023/24 (Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock Development, 2025). During the spring season, crops receive more sunlight and face fewer pest and disease problems, which can help improve productivity when proper irrigation is available. Similarly, growing rice in the spring season helps farmers make better use of land, sunlight, and other resources during months when fields might otherwise remain unused. This improves the overall efficiency of farm resources. Thus, Chaite dhan has the potential to contribute significantly to national rice production, strengthen food security, and reduce Nepal’s dependence on rice imports.
The Irrigation Gap in Spring Rice Cultivation
Even though spring rice has clear yield advantages, its cultivation remains limited in scale. In FY 2023/24, Chaite dhan covered only 104,712 hectares, compared to 1,334,277 hectares for main-season rice (Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock Development, 2025), highlighting the large gap between potential and actual spring rice area. One of the primary reasons for this limited adoption is insufficient and unreliable irrigation during the dry season.
Nepal has about 2.5 million hectares of irrigable land, but only 35% of this land receives year-round irrigation (Department of Water Resources and Irrigation, 2024), leaving the majority of fields vulnerable during the dry months. Many farmers rely on a mix of canal irrigation, shallow tube wells, and diesel or electric pumps to irrigate their fields. However, these sources are often unreliable, expensive, or inaccessible for many smallholders. In many Terai and Inner Terai districts, irrigation canals do not supply sufficient water during the spring months, forcing farmers to depend on groundwater pumping. For smallholder farmers, the cost of purchasing or renting pumps, buying diesel fuel, dealing with electricity uncertainty, and maintaining irrigation equipment can substantially increase production costs during the dry season (Adhikari et al., 2025). When fuel prices rise or electricity supply is inconsistent, irrigation becomes even more expensive and uncertain. For farmers with limited financial resources, these additional costs create a significant economic burden. As a result, despite spring rice’s potential to significantly increase rice production, limited and uneven irrigation continues to restrict its wider adoption across Nepal. Other factors, such as labor availability during the dry season, access to quality seeds, and relatively lower market preference for some spring rice varieties due to their coarse grain characteristics, also influence farmers’ decisions to cultivate spring rice.
Opportunities and Solutions to Bridge the Irrigation Gap
Addressing the irrigation gap is key to unlocking the full potential of Chaite dhan in Nepal. Government of Nepal has introduced several policies and programs to expand irrigation access. The Irrigation Master Plan 2019 (updated 2024) sets a long-term vision to increase irrigated areas and improve irrigation service delivery across the country, with a focus on expanding year-round irrigation, improving canal systems, and strengthening groundwater irrigation development (DWRI, 2024). In addition, initiatives such as community-managed small irrigation systems, shallow and deep tube wells, and solar irrigation programs supported by the Alternative Energy Promotion Centre (AEPC) also aim to improve water access for farmers, particularly smallholders. However, despite these efforts, irrigation access during the dry season remains uneven in agricultural areas of the country.
Improving irrigation infrastructure, such as modernizing canals and ensuring reliable water delivery during the dry season, would allow more farmers to access the water they need at critical growth stages. Expanding groundwater irrigation with cost-effective pumps, including solar-powered options, could provide smallholders with a sustainable alternative to expensive diesel pumps.
In addition to infrastructure, developing and promoting quality seeds and improved spring rice varieties that are high-yielding, finer grain quality, drought-tolerant, and suited to local soil and climate conditions could make cultivation more attractive. Extension services and farmer training on water-efficient practices, such as alternate wetting and drying, which involves allowing the field to dry for a short period before the next irrigation instead of keeping it continuously flooded, can help farmers make the most of limited water resources, without reducing yields (Gilardi et al., 2023).
On the policy side, strengthening existing government support mechanisms, such as electricity tariff subsidies for irrigation, solar irrigation programs, and the role of water-user groups, can further encourage wider adoption of Chaite dhan cultivation. Electricity and solar pump subsidies can help reduce irrigation costs for smallholder farmers, while water-user groups can play an important role in managing irrigation systems, coordinating water distribution, and ensuring fair access to water among farmers. In addition, targeted incentives for dry-season cultivation could motivate farmers to expand spring rice production.
By combining these technological, agronomic, and policy solutions, Nepal can expand Chaite dhan cultivation, increase rice production, reduce dependence on imports, and strengthen food security for the country. Nepal can unlock the full potential of Chaite dhan, improve farm productivity, and ensure a more resilient and self-reliant rice production system for the country.
Adhikari, R., Foster, T., Paudel, G. P., Urfels, A., Adhikari, S., & Krupnik, T. J. (2025). Impact of irrigation pump ownership on farm productivity in rice-wheat cropping systems of Nepal Terai. Water Resources and Economics, 100264.
Gilardi, G. L. C., Mayer, A., Rienzner, M., Romani, M., & Facchi, A. (2023). Effect of Alternate Wetting and Drying (AWD) and other irrigation management strategies on water resources in rice-producing areas of Northern Italy. Water, 15(12), 2150.
Regmi, N. R., Bhandari, M. K., Ghimire, P., & Panthi, B. (2023). Status and prospects of spring rice in Nepal: a review. I Tech Mag, 5(8), 1-5.
Author Introduction
Ms. Alisha Adhikari is an agriculture graduate from Nepal with a Master’s degree in Agricultural Economics. Her work focuses on sustainable agriculture, the water–energy–food ecosystem nexus, agricultural value chain, gender equality and social inclusion (GESI), and youth and women’s leadership. She is particularly interested in promoting climate-resilient and resource-efficient agri-food system in Nepal.