The lemon squeeze and the perils of an import-driven economy

Drinking warm lemon water early in the morning appears to be an in thing these days, with many people taking it first thing in the morning for the sake of good health. This fad, naturally, gives rise to queries about the demographics of the drinkers, the amount of honey, lemon and water used in an average family per day and prevailing perceptions about the hot drink, etc.            

Regrettably yet understandably, a cursory search for data on regular warm lemon water (hot lemon in colloquial terms) drinkers in the Kathmandu Valley yielded nothing quantifiable. 

As for the health benefits of this early-morning drink, let qualified nutritionists/dietitians/public health experts initiate a long and engaging conversation with interested members of the public, including fitness freaks and wellness enthusiasts. 

For now, let's look into the ingredients of warm lemon water and try to read deeper into the state of our economy. Let the lemon come first. 

Between mid-July 2021 and mid-March 2022, the import of lemons (Citrus limon, Citrus limonum and limes) totaled 78, 57, 878 kg, costing Rs 6,02,361, 000, as per data from the Department of Customs (DoS). 

Interestingly, an RSS report with the byline of Rajaram Karki, titled 'Nepal imports fruits worth around Rs 7 billion in seven months' points, citing agricultural experts, estimates that farmers could fetch as much as Rs 1 million annually from lemon farming across 13 ropanis of land. The report, published in nepallivetoday.com on March 19, 2022, dwells quit a bit on Nepal's latent lemon potential, giving rise to hope that this country, with a little bit of planning and execution, could easily turn into the proverbial land of milk and honey.  

It points that Nepal exported to India 50, 980 kg of citrus fruits with the total value of Rs 603, 000 during the reporting period. 

Let our lemon potential not remain on paper for far too long, enabling 1) the consumers to make lemonade, lemon tea, warm water lemon, lemon pickles or whatever and whenever they want 2) the farmers, middlemen, transporters, the manufacturers of lime-based products and all others in the supply chain a tidy profit and 3) local, provincial and federal governments to collect enough taxes, without squeezing small farmers and consumers too hard like they do with the lemon while making things like tea/hot lemon/lemonade. In difficult times like these, when incomes have gone down, jobs are hard to find/retain and market prices have been heading northwards in a fossil-fuel-powered(constrained?) economy, these governments should desist from squeezing the public like lemons.    

Now, let's sweeten this bitter talk and sour water mix with a little bit of precious honey. 

Let government data do a bit of talking. 

Between mid-July 2021 and mid-March 2022, Nepal imported 10,70,522 kg of processed natural honey worth Rs 216,998,000, per the DoC statistics. 

It's not that Nepal did not export honey during the reporting period. It did, but the amount was paltry: 13, 971 kg of honey worth 20,064, 000 rupees.  

That's a yawning import-export gap in a country with a huge potential for beekeeping and honey production, isn't it?

This leaves us with water, which Nepal has in abundance, supposedly. But the 'abundance' of water in water bodies like rivers, lakes, springs, falls and mountains is one thing, while having plenty of water running through your taps is a different thing altogether. Besides, while singing paeans about our bountiful water resources, there's a tendency to easily forget about factors like climate change and the existence of regulatory structures built unilaterally to channelise water across the border during the dry season and flood/inundate Nepal's grain basket, the southern plains, during the wet season. 

With public taps running dry most of the times in densely-populated cities, this abundance-of-water rhetoric sounds all too hollow. Stories of women and children from the hinterlands having to trek for hours to fetch pitchers full of water make a mockery of our water fortunes.

So, with the completion of ambitious projects like the proverbial Melamchi not so near, let's not blabber any further on this emotive topic and roil the public more.

Moving on, let's talk about bijuli or gas without which the lemon beverage of your choice won't come to fruition.

Again, Nepal has a huge potential for the generation of green energy, the hydropower. Estimates vary and may not be that reliable, what with climate change and the lack of hydrological data, but there's no dearth of experts, who believe that Nepal's hydropower can light the whole of South Asia, conveniently forgetting the carrying capacity of a country located on a seismic fault-zone, the impact of hydels on the environment and livelihoods. The 'huge potential' notwithstanding, Nepal's hydropower generation stands at around 1,800 MW, barely enough to meet suppressed demand for energy in an agrarian country devoid of electric mass transit systems, large goods and services industries and factories, etc.

The scenario is such that while Nepal exports the green energy at dirt cheap rates (around 4 rupees/unit) during the wet season, it imports dirty power produced from India's coal-fired plants at whopping rates for want of storage type projects for domestic consumption. Recent media reports have it that Nepal is making preparations to import power from India at the rate of Rs 38/unit.         

A couple of hydels are in the pipeline and we are already talking big about exporting the green energy in the immediate neighbourhood like India and Bangladesh, instead of building capacity to utilise the raw energy within the country and bringing about multiplier effect to the ailing national economy. 

Call it a paradox of 'development': A 'water resource-rich' country goes for the construction of pipelines (the 69-kim Motihari-Amlekhgunj pipeline and its extension up to Chitwan) and for the import of very expensive and environmentally unfriendly petroleum products and transmission lines for the export of green energy for a pittance.

This hot-lemon model is symptomatic of our heavy reliance on imports to run our daily lives.  

Back to the DoC data. In the first eight months of fiscal year 2077-78, imports totalled Rs 943,988,250,000 whereas the figure stood at 1,308,734,856,000 in the corresponding period of the fiscal 2078-79, a change of 38.64%. 

Exports totalled Rs 80,778,861,000 in the first eight months of the fiscal 2077-78, whereas the figures stood at Rs 147,746,066,000 during the corresponding period of the fiscal 2078-79, an increase of 82.90%. 

Trade deficit, which was at Rs 863,209,389,000 in the first eight months of 2077-78, ballooned to Rs 1,160,988,790,000 during the corresponding period of the fiscal 2078-79. With national financial resources squeezed like the lemon while making warm water lemon and other lemon-based drinks, hard times are ahead for Nepal, in view of rising oil prices and subsequent market prices in the wake of the Russia-NATO tensions over Ukraine that threatens to split the world in two camps. The prices are likely to rise further as political parties may seek donations from businesses and industries, and the latter may not hesitate to bill the gullible consumer in return.                  

Summing up, the sooner the state and the public realise the perils of a largely import-driven economy, the better.

-         Devendra Gautam