Agroforestry Practices in Midhills of Nepal from Gender Perspective

Abstract

Agroforestry practice is becoming compassionate option for rural communities to fulfil basic needs and generate income for households' wellbeing. Gender consideration seems worthful to obtain optimum benefits from agroforestry practices in the scarcity of male labour in the locality. This paper has attempted to analyse tendency of gendered participation in agroforestry practice and their existence in gaining benefits. We selected three mid-hills districts of Nepal where people are adopting both traditional (fulfilling subsistence needs) and improved (commercial purpose along with fulfilling subsistence needs) practices. We organized focused group discussions (n = 9), randomly sampled (n = 420) households for interview from each practice (n = 210) to analyse gendered wise participation in farm establishment, management intervention, capacity building and access to information, known as major agroforestry promoting activities. Key informant interview (n = 18), focused group discussions (n = 9), randomly sampled (n = 420) households for interview from each practice (n = 210) was organized to analyse gendered wise participation in farm establishment, management intervention, capacity building and access to information, known as major agroforestry promoting activities. Women participation seemed to be higher in establishment activities than male in traditional practices whereas males were front in applying chemical fertilizer and pesticides and irrigation in improved practices. While changing in practices from traditional to improved, male participation during land tillage found to be significant. Male domination was observed in making decisions regarding species selection in traditional practices whereas women domination was observed in improved practices. Men's involvement in species selection and plantation was found significant with changing in practices from traditional to improved. Men were ahead in capacity building and skill How to cite this paper:

Which Agroforestry Practice Is Beneficial? A Comparative Assessment of the Traditional and the Improved Agroforestry Techniques in the Midhills of Nepal

“…We further consulted experts, forest officials, academician, and local farmers to identify study sites. We followed criteria as described by [2] for distinguishing existing agroforestry practices as the traditional and the improved practices. In the traditional practice, farmers promote naturally regenerated woody perennials in alley of farmland in order to fulfill subsistence needs of forest products, whereas in the improved practice, farmer grows woody perennial, fruits, and cash crops along with agricultural crop for commercial purposes in addition to fulfilling subsistence needs.…”

“…e practice of growing trees on agricultural land, popularly known as agroforestry practice, ensures goods and services to farmers [1][2][3][4] so the practice is considered as prominent basis to rural livelihood [5][6][7]. Agroforestry is a land use system where agriculture and forestry disciplines are combined to produce multiple products (food, timber, fodder, fuelwood, leaf litter, etc.)…”

“…Agroforestry is widely considered as practice of economic opportunity to farmers for satisfying subsistence in developing countries like Nepal [14][15][16][17]. Several scholars have highlighted that agroforestry practices have importantly contributed to local livelihood in many countries such as Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, the Philippines, Kenya, and Nepal [2,[18][19][20][21]. However, they often failed to highlight and recommend better practice to enhance contribution of agroforestry practices.…”

“…Farmers are exercising different types of agroforestry practices in Nepal [26]. Currently, some farmers are doing modification in ancient agroforestry practice for commercial benefits along with satisfying household requirements of forest-based products, so two forms of agroforestry exist in Nepal, which are broadly classified as the traditional practice and the improved practice [2]. e traditional practice indicates growing of naturally regenerated trees on farmland with less intensive use of agriculture inputs, whereas the improved practice includes cultivation of high yielding varieties of trees with high use of agriculture inputs.…”

Diversity of Agroforestry Species and Uses in Two Ecological Regions: A Case from Central Nepal

“…Some explorations of multiple benefits of agroforestry are in place. Some of them are in a global level [20,21] and few notable types of research on agroforestry in Nepal were done by Khadka [22], Khanal [16], Dhakal et al [23], Amatya et al [24], and Paudel et al [25]. Conversely, as the home garden of two ecological regions of central Nepal, assessing the diversity along with its instantaneous use and benefits to the local people from plant species of agroforestry is poorly understood.…”