Effect of Climate Change on Socio-Economy and Vulnerability of Farmers in Nepal

Shrestha Suman Lal

Climate change will have effect on all sectors, but will vary in degree according to sector and region. Climate change will adversely affect sectors like agriculture and water which are dependent on climatic variables. People that are dependent on these sectors for their livelihood will be the most adversely affected by climate change. Subsistence farmers in developing countries like Nepal where agriculture is mainly rain-fed, and have very little resources and are unable to cope with changing climatic condition will be more vulnerable to climate change. So, it is very important to identify the groups and regions that are more vulnerable for policy or developmental intervention.

This research was conducted in order to study how climate change is having effect on the socio-economy and vulnerability of farmers. It tries to analyse the trend of climatic variables and climatic extreme of the study area and find how climatic variables are affecting yield of major food crops using regression analysis. Further, it also tries to study the adaptive capacity of farmers in the study area and captures their vulnerability. To capture adaptive capacity a semi-structured questionnaire survey was administered in Chitlang village development committee (VDC) of Makwanpur district and Namsaling VDC of Ilam district. Furthermore, vulnerability was calculated using integrated indicator approach.

The study analysed the trend of climatic variables such as temperature and rainfall, climatic extremes and also the effect of climatic variables on yield of major food crops of Nepal in both districts for the period from 1978 to 2008. The trend analysis found that in both the districts, the maximum temperature is increasing for summer and winter seasons as well as overall while minimum temperature was found to be increasing in Makwanpur district while it was in decreasing trend in Ilam district. Similar trends were found in the case of rainfall in both districts where it was found to be increasing in summer and decreasing in winter seasons.

The study showed that the effect of climate change on yield of major food crops except paddy in Makwanpur district had adverse impact. Similarly, in Ilam, except maize and potato, climate change had negative impact on all the food crops. Though the majority of climatic variables did not show any significant relation with yield, the analysis showed the direction in which the climate change has an effect. Further, trend analysis for yield of major crops was performed which showed that in Makwanpur district, the yield of paddy and maize was decreasing while other crops like millet, potato, wheat and barley was increasing. Similarly in the case of Ilam district, except yield of maize and millet, yield of other food crops was found to be in increasing trend. The potato was found to be rapidly increasing in both districts which is mainly due to the use of improved seeds and fertilizers.

Also, trend analysis of natural disasters showed that they have been increasing from mid 1990s and also the casualties caused by natural disasters were increasing in both districts. Descriptive analysis of socio-economic characteristics showed that there are high income disparities among the sampled households in both VDCs. In Chitlang VDCs there were only two categories of farmers among the sampled households, marginal and small according to landholding, while in Namsaling VDC, there were three categories of farmers; marginal, small and large. Though infrastructure was better in Chitlang than Namsaling, the literacy rate and farmers association was better in Namsaling.

The vulnerability analysis showed that the poorest sampled farmers households that lack resources in both districts were most vulnerable. In Makwanpur district, the variables like agricultural income, landholding, irrigation and livestock holding played important part in determining the vulnerability. But, in the case of Ilam, time taken to reach the infrastructure like road, health facilities, school, agricultural services and livestock services played important part. This showed that adaptive capacity will not just depend on few factors, but will differ according to the region.

Though the majority of the respondents were not aware of the term climate change, they noticed changes in climatic variables, especially in Namsaling than in Chitlang. Also, the respondents have noticed changes like faster ripening of fruits, invasion of plant species in higher altitude that used to grow in lower altitudes only and also started to notice mosquitoes in higher altitudes.

経済 [ 330 ]

英語

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[作成日] 2011-09-22