A Synopsis of Farmland Abandonment and Its Driving Factors in Nepal

Suresh Chaudhary,Kun Yan,Narendra Raj Khanal,Pei Xu,Bin Fu,Yafeng Lu,Yukuan Wang,Amod Mani Dixit,Qin Liu,Ming Li

doi:10.3390/land9030084

Abstract

Farmland abandonment is considered as an important phenomenon for changing eco-environmental and sociocultural landscapes of mountainous rural landscape. Many studies have analyzed farmland abandonment, its driving factors, geophysical processes and consequences at landscape: however, very few have focused on mountainous developing countries such as in Nepal, which is a rapidly urbanizing country suffering from serious farmland abandonment. Therefore, our study was an attempt to (i) assess the spatiotemporal extent of farmland abandonment in Nepal, (ii) explore driving factors of farmland abandonment, and (iii) discuss on the eco-environmental and sociocultural consequences in Nepal. We reviewed various literature, documents, and national reports to obtain a dataset pertaining to the overall status of farmland use and changes along with political and socioeconomic changes, economic development processes, and policy and governance in Nepal. Our results showed that farmland abandonment is widespread; however, it is more prevalent in the hilly and mountainous regions of Nepal. A total of 9,706,000 ha, accounting for 23.9% of the total cultivated farmland in Nepal, was abandoned during the period of 2001 to 2010. The driving factors included population growth, scattered distribution of settlements, urbanization, socio-economic development, poor access to physical services, and poor implementation of agriculture development policies. Furthermore, the increasing extent of natural disasters, malaria eradication, land reform and resettlement programs, the complex system of land ownership, land fragmentation, political instabilities, and the intensification of trading in agricultural products also acted as drivers of farmland abandonment in Nepal. Farmland abandonment generates negative effects on rural societies eco-environmentally and sociologically. Abandoned plots were subjected to different forms of geomorphic damage (e.g. landslide, debris flows, gully formation, sinkhole development etc.). Farmland landscape fragmented into a group of smaller interspersed patches. Such patches were opened for grassland. Furthermore, farmland abandonment also has effects on the local population and the whole society in terms of the production of goods (e.g., foods, feed, fiber), as well as services provided by the multi-functionality (e.g. sociocultural practices, values and norms) of the agricultural landscape. Therefore, this study plays an important role in planning and implementing eco-environmental management and social development processes in Nepal.

Highlights

Farmland abandonment is considered an important phenomenon in the eco-environmental and sociocultural landscape change process [1,2,3]
According to Khanal et al, farmland abandonment notable in the highhigh slopes of theofmountain areas, in regions abandonmentinitially initiallybecame became notable in the slopes the mountain areas, in that were remote from villages
Based on the secondary data from 1961–2017 from the Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS), the Ministry of Agriculture and Development (MoAD), and the Nepal Rastra Bank, and from the perspective of farmland use and changes in Nepal, this study demonstrated the quantitative value of farmland abandonment and its impact on the eco-environmental and social landscape of Nepal

Summary

Introduction

Farmland abandonment is considered an important phenomenon in the eco-environmental and sociocultural landscape change process [1,2,3]. Since 19th century, farmland abandonment is primarily occurred in European or in developed and industrialized countries [4,5,6], in Western. Many south Asian developing countries such as Nepal, India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, have been subjected to farmland abandonment in the recent years [17,18,19,20]. Regardless of the environmental impacts, farmland can lead to socio-economic effects, especially in terms of weakened farmers livelihoods, goods production (e.g. food, fiber etc.) [28], and socio-cultural practices (e.g. indigenous practices, norms and value) in rural communities [29,30]

Methods

Results

Conclusion