Status of Farmland Abandonment and Its Determinants in the Transboundary Gandaki River Basin

Raju Rai,Narendra Khanal,Basanta Paudel,Yili Zhang

doi:10.3390/su11195267

Abstract

Farmland abandonment is a common phenomenon worldwide, including in the Gandaki River Basin (GRB) in the central Himalayas. This study examined the status of farmland abandonment, along with its trends and determinants, based primarily on interviews with 639 households in different physiographic regions: Mountain, Hill, Tarai and Gangetic Plain (GP). Binary logistic regression was used to examine the contributions of various factors of farmland abandonment. The results indicate that nearly 48%, 15%, 4%, and 16% of total farmland (khet and bari) in the Mountain, Hill, Tarai and GP regions, respectively, has been abandoned. Such differences in the proportion of farmland abandonment among the regions are mainly due to variations in biophysical conditions, agricultural productivity, access to infrastructure facilities, off-farm employment opportunities, and the occurrence of natural hazards. The major determinants for farmland abandonment were also found to vary within the region. Distance from market centers to residence, reduction in the labor force as a result of migration, and household head age were found to be significant factors in farmland abandonment in the Mountain region. Similarly, in the Hill region, eight significant factors were identified: distance from market centers to residence, distance from residence to farmland, lack of irrigation facilities (p = 0.004), reduction in labor force (p = 0.000), household head occupation, lack of training for household head and size of bari land. Household head occupation and household head age were found to play significant roles for farmland abandonment in the Tarai region. In the GP region, distance to market centers and lack of irrigation facilities had positive relationships with farmland abandonment. It is suggested that specific policies addressing the differences in physiographic region, such as horticulture and agroforestry for the Mountain and Hill regions and crop diversification and the adaptation of drought tolerant species with improvement in irrigation systems for the GP region, need to be formulated and implemented in order to utilize the abandoned farmland and have environmental, economic, and sustainable benefits.

Highlights

Changes in land use patterns are very important because of their effects on the environment and human livelihood [1]
In the Tarai and Gangetic Plain (GP) regions, the proportion of abandoned khet land was higher than the proportion of abandoned bari land, whereas the opposite trend was found in the Hills and Mountain regions
Their roles in determining farmland abandonment are not similar for all the physiographic regions, as indicated by the level of significance obtained from binary logistic regression (BLR)

Summary

Introduction

Changes in land use patterns are very important because of their effects on the environment and human livelihood [1] One example of such a change occurs in farmland, the abandonment of which is a commonly observed phenomenon in different parts of the world [2,3,4,5]. Migration has contributed to the abandonment of rural farmland in many provinces of China [5]. In addition to migration, decreased population, resulting from epidemic disease, was reported to be an important factor contributing to farmland abandonment in rural villages of western and northern Europe in the 14th century [17]. In recent years, increasing farmland abandonment has created challenges related to food security in many mountainous regions in China [18].

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Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion