69th SWCS International Annual Conference “Making Waves in Conservation: Our Life on Land and Its Impact on Water” July 27-30, 2014 Lombard, IL

1. Gopal B Thapa/AIT
Challenges and Opportunities for
Farmland Conservation in the Hills of Nepal
Gopal B. Thapa
Professor
School of Environment, Resources and Development
Asian Institute of Technology
Thailand

2. 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

3. Gopal B Thapa/AIT
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

4. Gopal B Thapa/AIT
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 21.0
Source: Thapa, G.B. and Paudel, G.S. (2002), Farmland degradation in the mountains of Nepal……, Land
Degradation and Development, Vol. 13, pp. 479-493.

5. Gopal B Thapa/AIT
Upland crop terraces in Dhading and Nuwakot districts

6. Gopal B Thapa/AITRice terraces in Nuwakot district

7. Gopal B Thapa/AIT
Input
Output
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-slope
rice 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

8. Gopal B Thapa/AIT
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)

9. Gopal B Thapa/AIT
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/no
erosion
prone
cropped
area
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
High
erosion
prone
cropped
area
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 12
Sub
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 of
Agriculture; Statistical Information on Nepalese Agriculture
2011/2012, Ministry of Agriculture, Kathmandu

10. Gopal B Thapa/AIT
• 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.

11. Gopal B Thapa/AIT
Tea and cardamom plantations in the Eastern Hills of Nepal

12. Gopal B Thapa/AIT
Coffee and orange plantations in the Western Hills

13. Gopal B Thapa/AIT
• Unfortunately, the majority of Hill villages do not have easy access
to even the local market centers, not to mention the regional and
national 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 Total
Length % 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

14. Gopal B Thapa/AIT
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

15. Gopal B Thapa/AIT
• Therefore, despite being aware of production potentials, hill
farmers have been forced to continue growing crops that require
regular hoeing and plowing of land.
• Small and fragmented landholdings, on average about 1.0 ha/household
fragmented 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, though
the total amount of crops produced cannot meet their household food
requirement throughout the year due small landholdings and low
crop yield.

16. Gopal B Thapa/AIT
Region Agriculture Non Agriculture
% %
Eastern Rural Hills 81.6 18.4
Central Rural Hills 67.8 32.2
Western Rural Hills 74.0 26
Mid 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 in
the Hills of Nepal
• Scarce local non-farming employment opportunities also forces the
overwhelming majority of hill farmers to keep on practicing economically
unattractive and environmentally deleterious farming.

17. Gopal B Thapa/AIT
5. The Threat: Aggravated Land Degradation
• The hill population that contributed substantially to adoption of
highly 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

18. Gopal B Thapa/AIT
• Since a few years ago with the opening up of job opportunities
for foreign laborers, there is a trend of ever increasing number of
particularly 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 (Annapurna
Post, Feb. 27, 2014). About 1,500 youths are going abroad everyday.
• Since agriculture, including management of farmlands, is highly labor
intensive, the on-going rapid migration of youths has constrained
agricultural activities including land management. Reportedly, in the
absence of labor, cropping intensity has been reduced and farmers are
facing difficulty to take care of farmlands appropriately.
• Thus, the on-going labor migration has threatened accelerated
land degradation.

19. Gopal B Thapa/AIT
• The remittances sent by laborers has certainly contributed to
the 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).

20. Gopal B Thapa/AIT
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 is
an opportunity for promotion of locationally as well as economically
suitable 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 seriously
considered herbal medicine farming and private forestry as an
an alternative options of traditional arable farming that
that can potentially contribute to control soil erosion effectively
as well as to increase farmers’ income.

21. Gopal B Thapa/AIT
• 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 lose
direct and indirect benefits accruing to them from their monopoly
over common forest resources.

22. Gopal B Thapa/AIT
Thank you!