Thesis Abstract of AGS Students

An optimum planning for integrating citrus in Nepalese hill farming systems

Devendra Gauchan (1994)

The hill region of Nepal, which supports nearly half of the country's population and where environmental degradation is severe, the declining production and return from existing crop based systems is barely sufficient to sustain the needs of increasing population. In this context, integration of high value fruit tree such as citrus (orange) could be an alternative to improving the income status of small farmers without impairing the productivity of the existing resource base.

The main objectives of this study were to examine the existing farming systems and analyze the economic viability of integrating citrus farm plans under various economic and policy environments and resource endowments of the farm households. The study also aimed to assess the major constraints to integrating citrus into present hill farm systems.

This study uses cross sectional data of 1993 from 123 sampled households of two study sites of Kavre district, in mid hill region: Patlekhet and Sankhu which represent non citrus and citrus based systems respectively.

The sampled households of both study sites were classified into four groups based on land size. The labor and capital resource availability of farm households were found related to farm size. In Sankhu site orange was found more profitable and farm households preferred to grow it than competing enterprize maize because of economic and soil conservation benefits.

A farm level multiperiod linear programming model for a planning horizon of twenty years was employed in order to maximize present value of gross margin subject to various resource con- straints and consumption demand. Econometric method was used to estimate the consumption demand and later incorporated in the programming model.

The results of the multiperiod programming model revealed that the incremental benefits from the integration of orange fruit in two different production systems and resource endowments of the farm households were found higher over existing systems. For the optimum plan, the gross margin of all sized farms of both the production systems increased 10-17% over the existing ones. The smallest farm still have some land devoted for rice production, while medium sized farms devote all the land for orange.

The sensitivity analysis of existing citrus based systems showed that off-farm employment is the most significant factor which provides all the farm sizes to incorporate orange. But the price of orange, discount and wage rates have less impact on orange integration.

Despite the economic viability of orange integration, appropriate policy intervention such as emphasis on citrus based farming systems and improvement in institutional support services particularly extension and marketing support are needed to raise the long term income needs of the small farmers in addition to protect the deteriorating economy and ecology of the mid hills of Nepal.

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