Kaushal Kumar Poudel1*, Basu Dev Kafle2 , Sandip Subedi2 and Surya P Baral3
Nepal Horticulture Society, Khumaltar, Lalitpur
2 National Center for Potato, Vegetable and Spice Crops Development, Kirtipur, Kathmandu
3 Warm Temperate Horticulture Centre, Kirtipur, Kathmandu
* Author for correspondence: kaushalpdl@gmail.com * Orcid ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7967-0055
Abstract
In Nepal, migration from hills to terai began with the malaria eradication in terai to explore new opportunity in fertile land. Migration to terai and district headquarters was rampant during the long-armed conflict in the country. Lately, rural youths are migrating out to urban centers and foreign countries due to less attractive traditional farming in widely scattered small parcels of land. It has negatively impacted on labor supply and food production in the rural areas. Thus, agricultural lands are increasingly getting abandoned or converted into fallow land all over the Nepal. Consequently, fertile lands in terai and valleys are getting converted into settlements and cultivated lands in remote hills are left fallow/abandoned. Some estimates have shown that over thirty percent of total cultivated land is abandoned and it has impacted on food production and ultimately on food and nutrition security. The land use planning and programs have not addressed these issues effectively. Plantation of horticultural crops would be one of the best solutions owing to its impact on food and money supply in the rural economy as well as long term impact on environment particularly on soil and water conservation. Horticulture, especially modern fruit farming in remote hills, organic vegetables, seed and spices in isolated niche pockets, protected vegetable farming in peri urban and urban fallow lands with technical and financial support would be an instrument in attracting and mobilizing the youths, especially the foreign returnees to utilize abandoned and fallow lands productively and commercially.
Keywords: Fallow/abandoned land, youth, niche, horticulture