Workshop on Scaling Commercial Maize Production In Nepal

By Dyutiman Choudhary, Narayan Khanal, Santosh Nepal, Sanju Koirala, Timothy J. Krupnik

In Nepal, maize is the second most important crop after rice in terms of area, production, and yield. Despite strong demand, government prioritization, and the availability of improved technologies, maize production remains low. The value chain is poorly coordinated, and access to support services is limited. Fragmented and small-scale production, coupled with poor grain quality and weak linkages from seed supply to grain marketing, present major barriers to scaling maize production. The absence of an efficient market mechanism makes it difficult for small-scale producers to access larger markets due to their limited production volumes and long travel distances. As a result, they often sell in local markets where prices are significantly lower.

As a result, the growing demand for maize for both food and feed is increasingly met through imports. In Nepal, approximately 3,000 tons of poultry feed are consumed daily, with maize making up at least 50% of the formulation. This translates to an annual maize requirement of around 0.54 million tons—over 80% of which, valued at approximately USD 120 million, is currently imported. Enhancing domestic maize production, productivity, and market systems is essential not only to reduce import dependence but also to strengthen national food security and support millions of smallholder farmers.

These challenges call for a maize sector promotion and scaling approach that recognizes the critical roles of the private, public, and cooperative sectors, along with more effective implementation of policy priorities. The Maize Commercialization Model (MCM) — a production-to-market system innovation introduced by CIMMYT and its partners — was designed to promote spring maize cultivation in fallow lands, aiming to diversify cropping systems and strengthen maize value chains. Since 2021, the MCM has reached the acceleration stage in two provinces of Nepal, where it has demonstrated steady growth in farmer participation, engagement by local municipalities, and private sector investment. This coordinated approach has led to increased maize production, improved market prices, and enhanced incomes for smallholder farmers

During the workshop held from 25–28 May in Bardiya, Nepal — led by CGIAR’s Scaling for Impact (S4I) program and co-organized by CIMMYT and IWMI — a bold scaling ambition was set. By 2030, CIMMYT, IWMI, government agencies, and private sector partners aim to expand commercial spring maize cultivation to 44,000 hectares in the fallow lands of Lumbini and Sudurpaschim Terai regions of western Nepal. This represents a 50% increase from the area of 22,139 hectares in 2024. The scaling initiative is projected to benefit 175,000 smallholder farmers across the two provinces. Two distinct scaling pathways were identified:

• 40% of maize production will be directed to organized, formal feed mills.
• 60% will serve household food and feed needs, local food processors, and animal farms in rural municipalities.

These pathways will strengthen crop-livestock integration, enabling more diversified, resilient, and durable livelihoods. The scaling effort also aims to enhance a competitive, sustainable, inclusive, and resilient maize value chain.

As a result, maize self-sufficiency in the target regions is expected to rise from 31% in 2024 to 76% by 2030, creating rural jobs, boosting incomes, and promoting social inclusion in agricultural value chains. At present, Nepal imports over 70% of the maize grain used by the formal feed industry. Feed manufacturers consume an estimated 1,500 metric tons per day, equivalent to 550,000 tons annually, valued at USD 100 million. Ultimately, the scaling of maize production seeks to contribute significantly to Nepal’s national self-reliance in maize.

Building on the initial success, there is an enormous response from stakeholders to increase maize yield and to expand maize commercialization in spring fallows addressing climate action and gender & social inclusion. Stakeholders shared that in 2025 the MCM expanded to over 25% after CIMMYTs exit in December 2024. To dive deeper into the scaling potential, the scaling scan tool (www.scalingscan.org) was used to co-create the scaling ambition for MCM, diagnose stakeholders’ confidence in ingredients that are essential to scale the MCM and identify solutions for weaker ingredients. Using the scaling scan participants discussed that women and youths were the main beneficiaries of the MCM who could expand maize production in their own and leased lands in the terai and valleys in the foothills both within and beyond the existing municipalities.  Assessing the current and potential areas for maize production, the demand from feed mills and animal farms, participants collectively set the scaling target to 44,000 ha to be achieved in the next five years.

Stakeholders identified involvement of feed mills and local traders and incentives from the Government to access quality inputs such as seeds, machineries and irrigation as key to scale the MCM. Additionally, participants assessed the likely impacts of scaling MCM on society, gender and the environment to avoid or prevent any unintended consequences from scaling. Thereafter they revisited the scaling ambition of 44,000 ha and assessed that the target was still feasible with these criteria included. In the next level of the exercise, participants reviewed 10 scaling ingredients covering a range of aspects such as technology, finance, collaboration, markets, policy support, collaboration etc with respect to the MCM and scored them on a scale of 1-5 scale (Fig 1). The ingredients were discussed and debated by the group with each category of actor getting a fair chance of contributing and applying their scores. Access to finance (3.0), collaboration among actors (3.0) and public sector governance (2.9) received a lower score than the threshold score of 3. Participants then discussed tactics and approaches to address these weaker ingredients for successful scaling. Other significant lessons from the exercise included:

• Realization that apart from farmers, seed companies, millers, traders, food processors, local and provincial government would also be the target group of MCM scaling
• Special attention should be given to women from disadvantaged and indigenous groups such as Dalit and Janajati’s to engage in maize production through capacity building and market linkages.
• Assessing the gender dimensions of scaling MCM. While scaling may lead to women’s socio-economic empowerment, but it may increase workload and health hazards from using chemicals. However, stakeholders believed that with necessary safeguards the positive impacts could surpass the negative implications.
• The need to prioritize socio-technical and institutional bundles that were essential to achieve the scaling ambition. These included increased access to climate resilient and hybrid seed varieties; demand generation activities by private sector through field demonstrations; coordination with water user associations for irrigation; applying split doses of urea at V6 and V10 stages; use of IPM tools, improved electric thresher and provision of revolving fund to cooperatives to support marketing are important technologies for scaling maize production

The Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock Development (MoALD), farmers cooperative and value chain actors signaled a strong consensus to scale spring maize production and market development. “MoALD has already allocated budget in FY 2025 to support MCM and is committed to provide technical, financial and policy support to achieve the scaling ambition set by the stakeholders’, said Dr. Ram Krishna Shrestha, Joint Secretary, MoALD.  “We are the largest feed mill of Nepal, and our vision is to purchase 80% of annual maize requirement from Nepal in next five years”, said Suman Poudel, Marketing Manager, Nepal Wellhope Agri Tech Pvt Ltd. Speaking at the concluding session, Dr. Dyutiman Choudhary, Senior Scientist – Market Development, leading the S4I work in CIMMYT Nepal, highlighted the need for sustainable and resilient production systems that balance economic, social and environmental dimensions.

Scaling for Impact is CGIAR’s first dedicated Program to scale land, food, and water systems innovations, addressing urgent global challenges including poverty, hunger, climate risk, and malnutrition. It tackles persistent gaps in adoption by aligning research with user needs, enabling policies, markets, and finance, and deploying five interconnected areas of work—from stakeholder engagement to catalytic finance and adaptive learning. Aiming to benefit over 62 million people by 2030, the Program emphasizes inclusive, evidence-based scaling and seeks US$45 million annually to unlock transformation through coordinated, system-wide impact.

Fig 1: Scoring of scaling ingredients by stakeholders