Answers of those questions are not easy and straight forward. Even though it might need a lot of complex math, it is useful to formulate sustainable policies that could increase farmer’s efficiency and reduce absolute poverty. Various policies have been implemented in the past from different governmental as well as non-governmental organizations for the alleviation of poverty. However, a significant number of people (31 percent as per national poverty line and 55 percent as per World Bank (WB) benchmark of $ 1.25 per day) are still in absolute poverty. Since poverty is not decreasing, we need to find a way out that can fulfill the dual goal of achieving farmer’s efficiency and reducing poverty. The genuine concern then is how we can do that. My answer is: We can increase farmer’s efficiency by the optimal mobilization of their resources in an organized and scientific basis.
The joint productivity of cereal and vegetable crops per annum is 1242.6 kg in Mountains, 1424.4 kg in Hills and 1361.6 kg in Tarai respectively. That low productivity per household might be due to low farmer’s efficiency which is mainly caused by various factors I am discussing here. Existing legal and institutional settings in the country led to high degree of land fragmentation and then to the very low level of land holding (ie 0.8 hector per household). That process will continue until the existing legal system of transferring paternal property to their descendents will not change. This goal may not be feasible politically at the current rate of poverty and unemployment. At this fragmented land structure, it is hard to increase farmer’s efficiency. Out of the total, 39 percent of the land has irrigation facilities and only a small fraction of that land has year round irrigation facilities.
So, agricultural productivity in Nepal is extensively based on monsoon factor which can neither be controlled by the farmers nor by the government. That is another constraint of enhancing farmer’s efficiency. Likewise, the rate of using modern seeds and young plants which is assumed to yield more output than the normal ones in farming is very low. Only 31 percent of the households use modern seeds and young plants in their crop land. Similarly, the average rate of fertilizer used is 50 percent. That rate may not be sustainable every year due to the short-supply of the fertilizers.
Even though there is a provision of Junior Technical Assistant (JTA) at each Village Development Committee (VDC), neither the government nor the farmers raise the issues of their efficiency and their role in enhancing farmer’s efficiency and productivity. Only 5.4 percent of the farmers in Nepal use JTA services and 13.2 percent use veterinary technician services. That pictures out the accountability of those professionals and the ability to utilize their services by Nepali farmers.
The agricultural commercialization is highly constrained by the lack of infrastructures, transportation, small scale farming that leads to high per unit cost of production (inefficiency in production), lack of marketing ability among individual farmers and lack of rural urban linkage. Improvement on those parameters automatically boosts up farmer’s efficiency.
Furthermore, agriculture in Nepal is not research based. Primitive farming technique has been extensively used. Those factors significantly reduce farmer’s efficiency and productivity. The average years of schooling and the average health status of the Nepali farmers are very low. Both of these factors play significant role in enhancing farmer’s efficiency and productivity. Last but not the least factor that affects farmer’s efficiency is the lack of agricultural commercialization that helps to boost up the farmer’s willingness to produce more to make money. The agricultural commercialization is highly constrained by the lack of infrastructures, transportation, small scale farming that leads to high per unit cost of production (inefficiency in production), lack of marketing ability among individual farmers and lack of rural urban linkage. Improvement on those parameters automatically boosts up farmer’s efficiency.
Blending the low rate of land holding with other constraints that I have discussed in the previous paragraphs, I can argue that increasing farmer’s efficiency without implementing the integrated approach is quite impossible. Thus, an organized and systematic big-push is required for the sustained increase in farmer’s efficiency and poverty reduction. The policies implemented from governmental and non-governmental organizations in the past to improve agricultural productivity and reduce poverty are not encouraging. I am not saying that those are useless and not required for the country but are definitely not sufficient to alleviate poverty mainly because they are not sustainable.
Should the country, then, go into the new development paradigm that can increase farmers’ efficiency, enhance their productivity and then reduce poverty simultaneously? My answer is yes! But the concern again is how? Community based farming at which the land ownership remains with the farmers but farming is largely guided by community interest but backed by market demand could be the panacea. In this farming model, we can establish an institution that plays the intermediary role between the community and the investors, donors and markets.
The investors may be the government in the form of subsidies, transfers, etc or the private sectors. In that, this development model preserves the property right of an individual, establish the role of government and the role of private sector. Thus individual can maximize utility, government can maximize its welfare objective and the private sector can maximize profit by investing in the agriculture of their interest. Everybody could be happy! In addition, that institution conducts feasibility study in the proposed community and identify the best crops cycle for the given climate and topography of the proposed community. Alternatively, the institution can collaborate with other institution(s) such as National Agricultural Research Council (NARC) to fulfill its research goals. Thus this institution can play the role of a research institution as well. For the experiment, we can start with some selected communities to measure the effectiveness of the program and then implement it throughout the country at successive phases.
Writer is a PhD Candidate at the Department of Economics, Wayne State University, Detroit, MI, USA
satisdevkota2001@yahoo.com
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