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Many international agencies
including the International Fund for Agriculture
Development (IFAD) and the Food and Agriculture
Organization of the United Nations (FAO)
recognize that economic and social stability
and human security are pre-conditions for
sustainable livelihoods in the most of Least
Developed Countries (LDCs) in the World.
Violent conflict, within or between countries,
result in loss of life and destruction livelihood
assets, contributes to social and economic
disintegration, and reverses the gains of
development.
Nepal is a mountainous landlocked
country with a total land area of 147 181
km square in three main ecological zones:
Mountains, Hills and Terai.
It has a population of 23 million, of which
44% live in the hills, which occupy 42%
of the land area. Nepal is one of the LDCs
in the World. For 2002 GNI was USD 230 per
capita, (191 st out of 208 countries), and
44% of the rural population could be living
below the food-based poverty line. In terms
of human development, Nepal is 143 rd out
of 175 countries with a Human Development
Index of 0.499, the lowest in Asia (excluding
Afghanistan and DPR Korea for which data
is unavailable). Poverty is largely a rural
phenomenon and the largest concentration
of rural poor is in the hills, comprising
households with either no land or tiny plots
of non-irrigated land on the hill sides.
Since 1996 His Majesty’s
Government of Nepal (HMGN) has had to contend
with the Maoist insurgency, which began
in the hill districts of western Nepal .
Manu of the hill districts have been most
affected by the recent conflicts, the Banks
and government agencies have withdrawn from
many rural areas, which local election have
not been held, livelihood, income and household
food security in the hills, fragile at the
best of the times, have further eroded as
a result of the conflict. However, despite
this unfavourable situation NGOs, especially
those employing local people, are still
implementing development activities even
in continued conflict areas, provided their
activities are low profile and financially
transparent.
Opportunities to
support livelihoods, incomes and food security
in the hills
In a typical rural area
in the hills, households are clustered into
small hamlets, which are widely scattered,
with upland fields, forests and grazing
lands in between. Most of the cropland is
terraced, with irrigated paddy in the valley
and on the lower slopes and rain fed crops
in the higher parts. The average family
landholding in under 1 ha, with under 0.2
ha of arable land per person. Although subsistence
farming is the norm, only about 20% of households
produce enough food for their own consumption
, the rest suffering from food deficit for
3-9 months per year. Most households are
poor, although few are completely landless.
Similarly, very few farmers could be considered
wealthy. Even though nearly all households
are concerned with subsistence agriculture,
all increasingly depend on marketing and
off-farm income to make ends meet. The vast
ecological diversity existing in Nepal provides
even small and marginal farmers with opportunities
to either produce a wide range of high value
agricultural commodities, such as off-season
vegetables, high value vegetable seeds and
fruits, to generate some cash income from
their limited land.
The strategy of the Agriculture
Perspective Plan (APP) emphasizes the potential
for poverty alleviation through growth’
and is concerned primarily to support the
development of commercial agriculture. The
APP is very much reliant on market-driven
development supported by strategic public
investment in infrastructure (notably irrigation
and ‘agriculture’ roads) and
agricultural research and extension. It
focuses on agricultural transformation in
the Terai and specific areas of ‘high
potential’.
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