Peri-urban farming systems in Nepal: from subsistence to organic agriculture development

Peri-urban areas: Variation in production methodologies

Introduction Historical background of organic farming Objectives Methodology and the data Key findings Conclusion
Urban areas: Key markets, huge population density

Rural areas: More or less subsistence orientation, very less or no use of agro-chemicals (Organic by neglect)

Introduction

Nepal is an agrarian country with almost 66% engaged on agriculture & contributes 33% of GDP Smallholders and marginal farms predominate Nepalese agriculture (av. 0.80 ha) Almost 80% are family farms Mostly rural farming is organic by default/organic by neglect Peri-urban areas (PUAs)- huge variation in farming methodologies ranging from some subsistence to intensive inorganic Inorganic inputs such as fertilizers and pesticides entered in peri-urban areas of Nepal in the early 1980s Vegetables consume huge amount of agro-chemicals in PUAs Organic production as a means to restore soil and environment started in 1990s Almost 2% households in the urban areas consume organically grown products and 29% have desire for their availability

Historical background of organic farming in Nepal

Most of the family farms are still default organic Widespread use of agro-chemicals in PUAs started in 1980s Government provided free of cost to encourage farmers but farmers were skeptical Village extension workers buried bags of urea fertilizer in the farmers field in night time Once farmers found crop growth robust, extension workers disclosed the mystery indiscriminate use of agro-chemicals then started and replaced former production systems Farmers realized negative repercussions of inorganic farming in 1990s An American Judith Chase felt the need to produce fresh commodities in PUA and established AAA in 1987 and got twice the normal market price Farmers around her area got motivated and started organic production for niche markets Organic certification of tea, coffee and herbals began in 1996 National organic standards hammered out in 2006 Almost 8000 ha is fully converted organic in Nepal and 26 registered organic farms

Objectives

Comparison of socio-economic and biophysical features of the farming systems in peri-urban areas of Nepal Highlight the historical background of organic agriculture development in Nepal Perception to and preference on organic agriculture (farmers and consumers viewpoint) Data integration into spatial environment and develop regional models for simulating future development of the farming systems Farm level modeling to see how organic agriculture could develop over the period of time

Methodology and the data

Study area: Urban and rural continuum of Kathmandu Valley, Nepal Homogeneous farming systems: Subsistence farming Conventional farming Smallholder organic farming Sampling of farm households: Spatial sampling design using ArcView (95 farm households) Simple random sampling (35 farm households) Data collection: Structured questionnaire for socio-economic & market information Spatial data from the government source Soil sampling during transect walk for soil quality profiling

Research methodology

Data integration and modeling: Application of farming system approach (living standard analysis) Integration of socio-economic information into spatial environment Cost distance modeling Land quality profiling using nutrient status, available landforms, gross margin of crops and spatial maps Farm level modeling and simulation using GAMS Regional level modeling using spatial explicit analysis Conjoint modeling for preference analysis Logistic modeling and willingness to pay (WTP) approach Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) modeling