Sweeping assessments are under way across Nepal as the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock Development moves to quantify damage to crops and animals from recent floods and landslides that have struck swathes of the country. The exercise, the ministry said in a statement, is intended to produce an accurate basis for emergency compensation, seed and feed distribution, and longer-term recovery planning.

"Rapid and transparent data collection is essential for getting resources to farmers and herders who have lost their livelihoods," the ministry said, announcing that assessment teams have been despatched in coordination with provincial governments and local authorities to all seven provinces. Officials said preliminary figures will be compiled within two weeks, with more detailed verification to follow at the municipal level.

The timing is urgent. Agricultural producers and traders have reported interrupted harvests, buried paddy fields, washed-out vegetable plots and livestock deaths, all at a moment when Nepal is trying to curb food inflation and maintain steady supplies to urban markets. "My paddy fields are under silt and three goats were swept away," said a farmer in Sindhuli, who gave his name as Mahendra. "We need seed and cash support, or we will struggle through the next planting season."

Complicating relief and market access is damage to transport infrastructure. Reconstruction of a damaged diversion on the BP Highway — the arterial Banepa–Bardibas link that connects the Kathmandu Valley with Terai plains — is in progress, officials said, with Department of Roads crews and Nepali Army engineers working to reopen the route. Temporary repairs have prioritized single-lane traffic for essential goods, but officials cautioned that full reinstatement could take weeks depending on weather and materials.

Aid agencies and international partners have begun coordinating with Kathmandu. The Food and Agriculture Organization and the World Food Programme have been notified and stand ready to support rapid assessments and emergency inputs, international donors familiar with the discussions said. The ministry has also signalled it will seek funds from the National Reconstruction Authority and is exploring conditional support from multilateral lenders for resilience-building measures in flood-prone districts.

Beyond immediate relief, the government faces legal and policy choices. Under Nepal’s Disaster Risk Reduction framework, compensation and reconstruction require verified loss registries and local government endorsements; discrepancies between central and municipal estimates can delay disbursements. Agricultural economists warn that delayed payments and slow seed distributions could depress next season’s output and push up prices in the import-dependent months ahead.

Climate scientists and Nepali policymakers point to intensifying monsoon volatility as a structural factor. "These are not one-off events," said a climate resilience adviser working with provincial authorities. "Investment in irrigation, drainage, and resilient livestock husbandry must accompany compensation to prevent repeat disasters."

For now, the focus is triage: tally losses, restore key road links like the BP Highway diversion, and get inputs to farmers before the planting window closes. The ministry has pledged to publish summary results as they are verified; farmers and local leaders say timely transparency will determine whether Kathmandu can avert a season of deeper rural hardship and keep markets stable for the wider region.