Understanding Climate Change Adaptation by Farmers in Crop Production in Nepal

Madav Dhital^1, , Hridesh Sharma² and Minraj Bhandari³

¹Agriculture and Forestry University, Nepal

²Conservation Ecology, Agriculture and Forestry University, Nepal

³MADE-Nepal, Chitwan, Nepal

Cite this paper

Madav Dhital, Hridesh Sharma and Minraj Bhandari. Understanding Climate Change Adaptation by Farmers in Crop Production in Nepal. Journal of Food Security. 2016; 4(4):76-85. doi: 10.12691/JFS-4-4-1

Abstract

This study was conducted in Jhapa (Terai), Sindhuli (Hill) and Kalikot (Mountain) districts of Nepal from February 2015 to end of April 2016, to assess the understanding of climate change adaptation by the farmers in crop production using survey questionnaire. In the context of food sufficiency condition, Jhapa was more food secured followed by Sindhuli and Kalikot. The majority of respondents also perceived that climatic factors has affected their cropping pattern. Among various climatic factor, drought was major cause of loss in cereal, legume and vegetable production as perceived by majority of respondents. On trend analysis of three districts from 1989-2013 by Mann-Kendall test showed that maximum temperature and average temperature was significantly increasing by 0.042°C/year and 0.044°C/year respectively. While rainfall was significantly decreasing by 22.779 mm/year. On the impact analysis of rice in Jhapa, rainfall has significantly negative relation at 5% confident level while relative humidity has significantly negative relation to rice yield at 10% confident level. Similarly, in Kalikot rainfall has significantly positive relation to rice yield at 10% confident level. The results also suggest that in wheat at Jhapa, maximum temperature has significantly positive relation to wheat yield at 10% confident level. Among the three districts, varietal richness was found in Jhapa. Majority of respondents in Jhapa and Sindhuli have changed their varieties and adapted new varieties. The adaptation of new crops varieties by the majority respondents was for the greater yield. As adaptive capacity varies from district to district, this study argues that plan and policy should be formulated and focused on the location specific adaptation mechanism under changing climate.

Keywords

climate change, food security, crop production and adaptation

Copyright

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

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