Assessing Domestic Trade Costs and the Role of Agri-Food Enterprises in Nepal’s Agricultural Transformation

Institute for Integrated Development Studies, in partnership with the International Food Policy Research Institute, is conducting a critical and comprehensive diagnostic study under the Agricultural Transformation and Market Integration (ATMI-II) project. The overall objective is to diagnose key constraints in Nepal’s agricultural trade logistics and analyze the role of agri-food enterprise in driving agriculture transformation in Nepal.

Objective

Structured around two major, integrated components, it is designed to address Nepal’s fundamental evidence gaps by directly pursuing the following specific objectives:

Component 1: Quantifying the Logistical and Cost Barrier (Domestic Trade Costs)

This component addresses the trade logistics constraints by:

• Calculating the estimated domestic trade time and distances from key agricultural production zones to major ports/markets using Open-Source Routing Machine (OSRM).
• Estimating the domestic trade cost by combining OSRM-based outputs with secondary data on transport tariffs, fuel prices, and other logistical overheads.
• Mapping and analyzing the market spread and distance relationship between production centers and ports/major trade hubs, thereby identifying areas with the highest logistical barriers.

Component 2: Analyzing Structural and Social Transformation (Agri-Food Enterprises)

This component focuses on the role of agri-food enterprises in transformation by:

• Understanding the transformation of food enterprises and the retail sector by comparing data across different rounds of the Nepal Living Standard Survey (NLSS) and the Nepal Industrial Survey (NIS).

Analyzing the role of women in the management, employment, and ownership of food enterprises using disaggregated data from NLSS and NIS.