Small Farmers, Big Climate Constraints

Climate Change is a big challenge to the global environment and the economy. Nepal has identified climate change as a crosscutting issue by virtue of its nature and impacts. Despite nominal greenhouse gas emission of about 0.025 percent (NAPA/MOE, 2010), Nepal is listed as country at extreme risk to the impacts of climate change (CCVI, 2014). The underlying fact that makes Nepal fall in the vulnerable category is its geographical area stretched over tropical, temperate and alpine regions. The other factor attributing to Nepal’s vulnerability is its low development status. Lack of livelihood diversification opportunities due to poor resilience and low adaptive capacity exacerbates Nepal’s vulnerability and puts majority of its population under the risk of climate change impacts.

Nepal is home to predominantly rural population. Agriculture is the mainstay of Nepalese economy, employing two-third of the country’s labor force and contributes over one-third in the national GDP. Almost to a large majority of 65 percent of Nepali population depends on agriculture for their livelihoods (Economic Survey, Ministry of Finance, 2011/12). Agriculture provides food, income and employment for majority of rural households with small landholdings.

In Nepal 70 percent of households hold less than 1 hectare of land and many depend on agricultural lands that are too small to meet their subsistence requirements (NLSS, 2011). Around 93 percent of operational holdings operated by small farmers have an average land size of 0.5 hectares (Gaiha and Thapa, 2011). Many of the farmers operating in marginal land are from socially discriminated communities (lower castes). Usually, it is the discriminated communities (lower castes) who labour in the marginal land. They are typically engaged in traditional subsistence farming and practice rain fed agriculture to sustain their livelihoods. The agricultural productivity level is extremely low due to inadequate access to farming technologies and extension services. In addition to above mentioned farming challenges, climate change related issues also adds burden into their lives to increase their hardship.

Agricultural activities being sensitive to temperature and water availability are affected by changing environment. Alteration in temperature and precipitation has direct impacts on crop yield and food security. International Panel for Climate Change (IPCC) clearly states that smallholder and subsistence farmers in developing countries will suffer the most from climate change impacts (Easterling et al. 2007). This holds true for the traditional smallholder farmers in Nepal as well.  Small farmers are likely to be hit the hardest. The limited land ownership and constrained adaptive capacity of these farmers exposes them to bear the adverse impacts of climate change. Lack of prior knowledge and inefficient aids further intensifies their susceptibility.

The impacts of climate change on the small landholder are localized and differ as per the region. The farmers in the terai region are at greater risks of floods and droughts whereas the farmers in hill and mountain are more vulnerable to risks of landslides. Besides the physical factor, the social factor also contributes to farmer’s vulnerability. The higher caste people mainly the Brahmin/Chhetri with maximum land-holdings (zamindaars/landlords) are dominant factor deteriorating the welfare of deprived small farmers.

When it comes to climate change related issues, the high dependence of small farmers on monsoon have increased their vulnerability to rainfall variation. At many places the erratic rainfall has resulted into decline in crop production. There are also evidences of shifting agricultural pattern in the country, due to water scarcity. The shifting from paddy to sugarcane cultivation in the terai regions is the contemporary example. Even after the switching of crops, has it been sufficiently able to feed the smallholder farmers’ families is yet to find an answer and the planned field visit to the site will try exploring the same. Similarly, the consequences of untimely and severe hailstones, pre and post-seasonal frost and dews have damaged crops. The higher surface temperatures have led to the emergence of new weeds and pests posing new challenges to the entire farming system by increasing farm expenses. The low productivity of the crops further adds debt burden of already suffering farmers.  This situation forces them to take informal credits from local land-lords  Thus, impacts of climate change is daunting heavy costs to the small-scale farmers, as the productivity is decreasing to pull back the income too, and their  livelihood is entirely based on the  traditional rain-fed farming.

Nepal has developed policies and plans like Local Adaptation Plan for Action (LAPA), National Adaptation Programme of Action (NAPA) and Climate Change Policy 2011 to address climate change issues. These policies and plans fail to mainstream small farmers’ issues to changing climate. The NAPA/LAPA framework remain silent regarding the role of community institutions like Community Forest User Groups (CFUGs) and farmer’s groups in addressing climate change. Thus, the target groups are not seen within these documents. Such conditions and its implication have challenged the reliability of the national frameworks. In addition, the social dynamism and exclusion of the smallholder farmers have also deprived them of the climate change information. In nut shell, this entire situation has made the small farmers highly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. Therefore, it is essential to address issues of small farmers in order to prevent the problems of additional poor and food-insecure population in the country.

References:

 Ministry of Environment (2010), National Adaptation Programme of Action (NAPA) to Climate Change, Kathmandu: Government of Nepal

Climate Change Vulnerability Index (2014), Maple croft’s Climate Change and Environmental Risk Atlas.

Ministry of Finance, Economic Survey 2011/12, Government of Nepal.

NPC (National Planning Commission) (2010). Three year plan approach paper (2010/11 - 2012/13): Government of Nepal, Kathmandu.

NLSS (Nepal Living Standard Survey). 2011. Central Bureau of Statistics, Nepal, Government of Nepal, Kathmandu.


Note: This article has been co-authored with Ms. Upasna Acharya and was published in MEX Year Book 2014.
http://www.mexnepal.com/webimages/yearbook2014/yearbook2014.html