Additional Context: This information was collected as part of The Aid Report's original feature story, "'I had no choice but to go abroad': US aid cuts hit Nepal’s farmers." Reporter Yam Kumari Kandel looked into the effects of the termination of USAID's agricultural initiative Feed the Future on the lives of rural farming communities. This quote is attributed to Rudra Shrestha, former director of the Agriculture Inputs Program implemented by Winrock International, which was under the Feed the Future initiative.

The program implemented as part of the Feed the Future initiative in Nepal, which began in 2023 and was supposed to continue into 2028 with a budget of $24.5 million, aimed to make seeds, fertilizer, irrigation, and mechanization more accessible to rural farmers, while modernizing the system through better seed quality and private sector coordination.The project was cut, according to Shrestha, mid-implementation. It had begun working alongside farmers but had yet to fully secure buyers, test systems, or fully expand access.

Source: Devex