Emerging issues in agriculture development in Nepal

a) Changing needs of farmers:

• Commercial farmers’ demands are more specialized than input-based demands of subsistence farmers.
• The former demand for enterprise management, dairy animal production and supply of quality semen.
• Donor-assisted projects tend to push through agreed activities which farmers generally have no or little need for or consider as low priority to them.
• Thus, there is a mismatch between farmer’s real needs and interests and project focus.

b) Services to the disadvantaged:

• The extension system works with a generalized approach to delivering the services without regards to the types of clienteles existing in the farming community.
• So, the extension system should design different mechanisms and related service inputs to address the needs and priorities of these different clienteles prevailing in the agriculture sector in the country.

c) Women farmers:

• Widely recognized, Nepalese women farmers work longer hours and contribute more in farming than their male counterparts.
• But extension service coverage for women farmers is less than that for male farmers.
• The reasons for this are: very few or no frontline female extension workers in the districts; male extension workers not well oriented towards gender sensitive service delivery skills; cultural values in some societies prohibit free movement of women out of their homes; lack of women friendly technologies to reduce their drudgery (for example, food processing); additional
• responsibilities of child care and household core borne by women compared to the males; and lower literacy rate of women farmers than the male farmers.

d) Migration:

• Though migration is also viewed as a coping strategy against shocks and crises, Nepalese youth from all parts of the country tend to migrate abroad.
• This scenario resulted into the agricultural activities in the hands of elderly people, women and children.