Gopal B Thapa/AIT

Challenges and Opportunities for Farmland Conservation in the Hills of Nepal

Gopal B. ThapaProfessor 

School of Environment, Resources and Development Asian Institute of Technology 

Thailand  

Gopal B Thapa/AIT

1. Introduction: The Hills of Nepal

• Account for about 42% of the total area• Altitude ranges from about 600 to 5,000 m above MSL• Moist sub-tropical climate with three seasons• 39 out of 75 districts • 44.3% of the total population in 2001

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2. Land Use in the Hills

Land Use %

Irrigated rice 7.0

Rainfed cultivation 15.0

Grazing land, shrub & degraded forest

54.0

Closed forest 22.0

Other 2.0

Total (4.443 million hectares) 100.0

Source: Carson, B. (1992), The Land, The Farmer, and the Future: A Soil Fertility Management Strategy for Nepal, ICIMOD, Kathmandu

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3. Dimensions of Farmland Degradation

• Soil Erosion

Land Type  Soil loss (t/ha./yr)

Irrigated rice terraces 0

Rainfed bench terraces 5.0

Rainfed marginal land 20.0

Source: Carson, 1992

Farmers’ perception of lands undergoing serious soil erosion in the Hills

Land type  Project watershed(% of land)

Non‐project watershed (% of land)

Valley rice terraces 8.0 10.0

Hill‐sope rice terraces 16.0 16.0

Upland crop terraces 40.0 48.0

Homesteads 20.0 21.0Source: Thapa, G.B. and Paudel, G.S. (2002), Farmland degradation in the mountains of Nepal……, LandDegradation and Development, Vol. 13, pp. 479-493.

Gopal B Thapa/AITUpland crop terraces in Dhading and Nuwakot districts

Gopal B Thapa/AITRice terraces in Nuwakot district

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InputOutput

Project Watershed Non-project Watershed

N(kg/ha/y)

P(kg/ha/y)

K(kg/ha/y)

N(kg/ha/y)

P(kg/ha/y)

K(kg/ha/y)

Valley rice terraces

Input 57 13 40 35 1 14

Uptake 9 10 100 88 1 95

Balance -34 0 -60 -53 0 -81

Hill-sloperice terraces

Input 40 11 28 31 9 23

Uptake 5 8 44 65 10 71

Balance -16 3 -16 -34 -1 -48

Upland crop terraces

Input 124 33 121 67 14 66

Uptake 145 21 84 90 12 34

Balance -21 12 37 -23 2 32

Source: Thapa and Paudel, 2002

• Nutrients Mining

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4. Drivers of Soil Erosion

• Technically, sloping lands are considered to be suitable for non-arable agriculture. But most farmlands in the hills are under arable agriculture(mostly food crop).

• The arable agriculture, which requires regular hoeing/plowing of farm lands on steep slopes, is attributed as the primary cause of soil erosion.

• Though farmers had made their utmost efforts to control soil erosion, example: terraces, they could not control it effectively due to hoeing/plowing of farmlands on steep slopes.

• Traditionally adopted for food security in an economically isolated situation, the arable agriculture still dominates the agricultural land use in the Hills.

(Table)

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Crops

Eastern Hills Central Hills Western Hills Mid Western Hills Far Western Hills

1984/ 85 2011/12 1984/85 2011/12 1984/85 2011/12 1984/85 2011/12 1984/85 2011/12

Area % Area % Area % Area % Area % Area % Area % Area % Area % Area %

Low/noerosion prone croppedarea

Paddy 70 29 101 24 83 28 87 23 92 30 126 23 33 20 48 17 18 24 34 23

Others1 NA NA 21 5 NA NA 15 4 NA NA 21 4 NA NA 11 4 NA NA 6 4

Sub Total 70 29 122 29 83 28 102 27 92 30 147 27 33 20 59 20 18 24 40 28

Higherosion prone croppedarea

Maize 97 41 154 36 111 38 138 37 115 38 202 37 65 38 97 33 14 19 27 19

Wheat 18 8 28 7 47 16 36 10 35 11 54 10 37 22 87 30 27 36 51 35

Millet 24 10 56 13 15 5 37 10 43 14 95 17 14 8 12 4 7 9 10 7

Others2 30 13 65 15 38 13 59 16 21 7 46 8 20 12 35 12 9 12 17 12Sub Total 169 71 303 71 211 72 270 73 214 70 397 73 136 80 231 80 57 76 105 72

Total 239 100 425 100 294 100 372 100 306 100 544 100 169 100 290 100 75 100 145 100

Agricultural Land Use in the Hills (in 000 Ha)

1Other low erosion prone crops include tea, coffee and fruits. Fruits include citrus, summer and winter varieties.2Other high erosion prone crops include pulses, spices, buckwheat, potato, oilseeds, sugarcane and barley. Pulses include lentil, chick pea, pigeon pea, black gram grass pea, horse gram, soybean and others. Spices include cardamom, ginger, garlic, turmeric and chili. Oilseed crops include mustard, sarsoon, rayo, sunflower, groundnut, sesame, linseed and niger.

Source: Agricultural Statistics of Nepal 1990, Ministry ofAgriculture; Statistical Information on Nepalese Agriculture2011/2012, Ministry of Agriculture, Kathmandu

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• Farmlands on hill slopes are considered to be suitable for non-arable use including forestry and plantation agriculture from both environmental and economic perspective.

• Farmers are utilizing farmlands as per their suitability wherever there is an opportunity to take advantage of locational potentials such as tea, coffee and cardamom plantations (pictures)

• Easy access to market facilitated by roads has played an important role in bringing a significant change in the use farmlands, which has helped to control soil erosion significantly and at the same time increased farmers’ income considerably.

• However, such land use accounts for a negligible proportion of the total farmland.

Gopal B Thapa/AITTea and cardamom plantations in the Eastern Hills of Nepal

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Coffee and orange plantations in the Western Hills

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• Unfortunately, the majority of Hill villages do not have easy accessto even the local market centers, not to mention the regional andnational centers, due to lack of roads.

• Roads have been constructed, but majority of them are either gravel or laterite, and they serve only a small percentage of the hill population (Table).

Region BT GR ER TotalLength % Length % Length % Length %

Eastern Hills 274.94 31.00 143.73 16.20 468.07 52.80 886.74 100

Central Hills 765.61 59.00 268.21 20.70 264.80 20.30 1,298.62 100

Western Hills 557.86 53.80 48.64 4.70 430.30 41.50 1,036.80 100

Mid Western Hills 59.49 6.00 304.51 31.10 617.99 62.90 981.99 100

Far Western Hills 265.54 44.00 34.9 5.80 302.9 50.20 603.34 100

Total 1923.44 40.00 799.99 16.60 2084.06 43.40 4807.49 100.00

Source: Road Statistics, Department of Roads, 2006/07, Kathmandu

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Region Road Density (km/100 sq. Km)

Eastern Hills 8

Central Hills 11

Western Hills 6

Mid Western Hills 7

Far Western Hills  9

Hills 10

Road Density in the Hills

Source: Road Statistics, Department of Roads, 2006/07, Kathmandu

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• Therefore, despite being aware of production potentials, hillfarmers have been forced to continue growing crops that requireregular hoeing and plowing of land.

• Small and fragmented landholdings, on average about 1.0 ha/householdfragmented into about 4 parcles, is another important factor constraining shift of hill farmers from arable to locationally and financially suitable non-arable land use.

• Confronted with food security, difficult access to market and scarce non-farming employment opportunities, hill farmers have continued growing mostly cereal crops, irrespective of land suitability, thoughthe total amount of crops produced cannot meet their household food requirement throughout the year due small landholdings and low crop yield.

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Region Agriculture Non Agriculture% %

Eastern Rural Hills 81.6 18.4Central Rural Hills 67.8 32.2Western Rural Hills 74.0 26Mid Western and Far Western Rural Hills

73.8 26.2

Total 100 100

Source: Nepal Living Standard Survey 2010/2011, Central Bureau of Statistics, Kathmandu

Labor force employment in Agricultural and Non-agricultural Activities inthe Hills of Nepal

• Scarce local non-farming employment opportunities also forces the overwhelming majority of hill farmers to keep on practicing economicallyunattractive and environmentally deleterious farming.

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5. The Threat: Aggravated Land Degradation

• The hill population that contributed substantially to adoption ofhighly labor intensive land management practices, including terraces, is gradually decreasing due to permanent out-migration.

Origin Destination % Out Migration

Net Migration

Mountain Hill Tarai Total

Mountain - 125,597 169,852 295,422 17.1 -255,103

Hill 33,895 - 1,157,035 1,190,930 68.9 -830,759

Tarai 6,424 234,574 - 240,998 14.0 1,085,862

Total 40,319 360,171 1,326,860 1,727,350 100.0

% In Migration

2.3 20.9 76.8 100

KC, Bal Kumar, “Internal Migration in Nepal”, http://cbs.gov.np/wp-content/uploads/2012/Population/Monograph/Chapter%2015%20%20Internal%20Migration%20in%20Nepal.pdf

Inter-ecological population migration in Nepal, 2001

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• Since a few years ago with the opening up of job opportunities for foreign laborers, there is a trend of ever increasing number ofparticularly Nepalese adult males from both the Hills and Tarai regions of the country going to the Middle Eastern, Southeastern and East Asian countries as wage laborers and semi-skilled workers.

• Officially, 3.3 million Nepalese laborers, accounting for more than one-tenth of the total national population, were working abroad in 2013 (AnnapurnaPost, Feb. 27, 2014). About 1,500 youths are going abroad everyday.

• Since agriculture, including management of farmlands, is highly laborintensive, the on-going rapid migration of youths has constrained agricultural activities including land management. Reportedly, in theabsence of labor, cropping intensity has been reduced and farmers arefacing difficulty to take care of farmlands appropriately.

• Thus, the on-going labor migration has threatened accelerated land degradation.

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• The remittances sent by laborers has certainly contributed tothe national economy considerably as, reportedly, it accounts for 23% of GDP (Annapurna Post, Feb. 27, 2014).

• However, the remittance has contributed a little to enhance agricultural production and farm land management in the Hills as most of the remittance was being used for meeting basic needs, including food, and payment of loan obtained to finance the cost of out-migration (Wasti, 2012).

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6. The Opportunity

• While the rapid outmigration of hill population poses a serious threat for accelerated farmland degradation, it also offers an opportunity for controlling land degradation and increasing economic return from land use.

• As individual farmers are finding it difficult to continue with the traditional arable agriculture due to labor shortage, there isan opportunity for promotion of locationally as well as economicallysuitable non-arable land use including plantation agriculture,medicinal herbs farming and private forestry.

• Besides other factors, connecting villages with market centers through all weather roads is a major challenge for promotion of plantation agriculture as well as private forestry.

• Likewise, on the policy front, the government has not yet seriouslyconsidered herbal medicine farming and private forestry as anan alternative options of traditional arable farming that that can potentially contribute to control soil erosion effectivelyas well as to increase farmers’ income.

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• The Forest Act 1992 and Forest Regulations 1994, allow individuals to keep private forest (Niroula and Subedi, 2013). However, there are stringent regulations with regard to the sale of timber and other forest products from private forest.

• Moreover, so far there is no government policy promoting private investment in forestry, which might be partly attributed to concerned policymakers’ and bureaucrats’ apprehension that they would losedirect and indirect benefits accruing to them from their monopoly over common forest resources.

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Thank you!