Agriculture In Nepal Essay

Nepal is still agriculture dominated country where the population is primarily concentrated in rural areas. Over 60% percent of country’s population depended on agriculture for their livelihood and 6.4 million people food insecure (Synnott, P., 2012). Country is categorized into low income with per capita GDP at PPP $ 2260 (World Bank 2014).

Small holders and subsistence farmers make up 78 % of all agricultural holding (Synnott, P., 2012); the average size of agricultural land area in the country is 0.7 hectares (CBS 2012). A majority of the agricultural households depend on small farm size for cultivation. Of the total farmers about 53 percent are “small” farmers (operating less than 0.5 hectors of land) and other 4 percent are “large”

Higher degree of poverty and dependency on subsistence farming by large portion of population has limit the coping ability of rural poor and increased the number of food insecure population (CBS 2012). Gum et al., (2009) has put forth some evidences of changing climatic trend in Nepal; these include:

1) Temperature in Nepal has been rising at alarming rate; trend has been consistent since 1970, the average annual mean temperature warming rose by 0.06°C in 2000. Moreover, degree of warming is pronounced at higher altitude region and more so in winter compared to others seasons.

2) Day and night are becoming warmer and cool days and nights are becoming less frequent particularly for the higher altitude. Glaciers are melting at faster than the world average, feeding Glacier Lake at alarming rate.

3) There is still some evidence of more intense precipitation events. Patter of water flow in some rivers has indicated an increase in the number of annual flood

According to the study from (Action. P., 2009), the maximum is increasing at a greater rate (0.05 C/year) than the minimum temperature (0.03 C/year). They also found decreasing trend in maximum temperature in Terai region during winter season. In relation to whole country they found that mean maximum annual temperature is in increasing trend except few isolated places. Similarly, for minimum temperature that varied between 18C to 6 C in the North western part of Nepal, study also found that annual mean temperature is in decreasing trend in northern parts and large portion of the mid western and far western development regions. Whereas in most of the southern part, the country is experiencing increasing trend of annual mean temperature. All seasons observed a general decreasing trend in minimum temperature in the northern mountainous region and increasing trend in the southern hill and plain region of the