Hub Characterization Report Nepal Hub

Transcription

1 Cereal SyStems InItIatIve for South ASiA Hub Characterization Report Nepal Hub Prepared by Hub Communication Platform Objective: 1 (Activity: 1.3) Neelam Chaudhary Lori Wichhart John Corbett

2 History of Nepal and Hub region Nepal, officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal, is a South Asian country. It is located in the Himalayas and bordered to the north by China, and to the south, east, and west India. It is spread over 147,181 square kilometers with a population of approximately 30 million. Kathmandu is the nation's capital and the country's largest metropolitan city. Nepal is a country of highly diverse and rich geography, culture, and religions. The mountainous north has eight of the world's ten highest mountains, and south is fertile, humid and heavily urbanized. About half of the population lives below the international poverty line of US$1.25 a day. The terai region of Nepal begins at the alluvial, generally forested and often marshy zone. In Nepalese usage Terai extends to the border with India and includes drier, mostly cleared agricultural land below the marshes. Indian usage is more tied to hydrology and ecology. The terai valleys historically are agriculturally productive region with majority of industries located here. Agriculture is the main economic stake of the region. Main crops are paddy, wheat, pulses, moong, sugarcane, jute, tobacco, and maize. Many agro-based industries like jute factories, sugar mills, rice mills and tobacco factories are established throughout the region. Introduction of CSISA The Cereal Systems Initiative for South Asia (CSISA) provides an overall strategy and umbrella for contributing new science and technologies to short- and long-term cereal production growth in South Asia s most important grain baskets. The key technology dissemination CSISA activities are focused through nine hubs (Figure 1) across South Asia including Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Pakistan, representing the intensive cereal production systems. The cereal production system constraints are complex in nature and require site specific management solutions. Through a series of workshops, discussions and

3 literature review, the productions system constraints and their appropriate entry points were identified by the objective 1 /CSISA team. The attributes of these constraints and probable entry points have been prioritized by the respective hub team. So based on the data provided by hub managers the hubs have been characterized for the constraints along with potential solutions relevant to domain area using the awhere desktop software. The current report includes the hub characterization of the Chitwan hub in Nepal. The data for hub characterization have been provided by Dr Sherchan (Hub-Manager Chitwan) and the sources (metadata) have been denoted with the maps in the hub characterization report below. The report includes Hub domain area Area (ha) covered under different districts of Nepal Hub Household number in different districts of Nepal Hub domain Average household size of different districts of Nepal Hub domain District-wise total, male and female population in Nepal hub domain District-wise area under rice, wheat & maize of Nepal Hub District-wise production (tons) of rice of Nepal Hub District-wise production (tons) of wheat of Nepal Hub District-wise production (tons) of maize of Nepal Hub District-wise yield of rice, wheat & maize of Nepal Hub District-wise sale of urea (mt) in Nepal hub domain area District-wise sale of complex (mt) in Nepal hub domain The hub domain covers most of the terai region of Nepal and is comprised of six districts named Bara, Chitwan, Makwanpur, Nawalparasi, Parsa and Rupandehi (figure 2) covering 1.35 mha area. The most of the hub domain region is adjutant to the Indian border and share common boundaries to the Eastern Uttar Pradesh Hub of India. The cropping systems followed in both the hubs are also common. The hub domain region covers a belt of the alluvial plains of Nepal. In addition to the data provided by hub manager, Nepal census data has also been used to characterize the Chitwan hub. The data shown in figures 3-6 has depicted from 2001, Nepal Census. The data in figures 7-11 has been captured from Statistical Information on Nepalses Agriculture 2007/08 published by Government of Nepal, Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives, Agribusiness Promotion and Statistics division, Singh Durbar,

4 Kathmandu, Nepal. The source of sale data of different fertilizers shown in figures 12 & 13 is MOAC and Agricultural Inputs Co. Ltd. The maps and charts for characterisation of Nepal Hub has been done using awhere software- a tool for better interpretation and fast decision. For download awhere software and more details visit the link Figure 2: Chitwan hub domain districts The total hub domain districts cover 1.35 million ha of total area. Figure 3 shows the total area covered under each district of the Chitwan hub. The maximum area is in Makwanpur district ( ha), followed by Chitwan, Nawalparasi, Rupendehi, Parsa and minimum by Bara ( ha) (Figure 3). Inspite of largest area, Makwanpur has least number of households Figure 3: Area (ha) covered under different districts

5 (71112) (Figure 4). Whereas, Rupendehi has remarkable higher number of households (117856). So the there is need to emphasize more on technological innovation in Rupendehi district as it can impact higher number of households as compared to other districts. The average household is highest in Bara district (6.38) (Figure 5) followed by Parsa and least in Chitwan district. Figure 4: Household number in different districts of Nepal Hub domain Figure 5: Average household size of different districts of Nepal Hub domain The gender ratio in hub domain region as well as in Nepal is almost 1:1 (figure 6), depicting that technology or policy interventions should take into account both genders.

6 Figure 6: District-wise total, male and female population in Nepal hub domain The three major crops namely grown in the hub domain region include rice, wheat and maize, following a rice-wheat, rice-maize and maize wheat cropping system (Figure 7). Total cropped area under major cereal crops i.e. rice, wheat and maize in hub domain districts is 0.43 million ha. Out of which, statistical data shows that rice occupied 61.20% of total area followed by wheat (25.68%) and minimum is under maize (13.10%). So it shows clear indication that rice is predominant crop in Nepal hub region (Figure 7). Rupandehi Nawalparasi Chitwan Makwanpur Parsa Bara Figure 7: District-wise area under rice, wheat & maize of Nepal Hub

7 Figure also depicts that the rice wheat is the major cropping system in Rupandehi district covering 72,000 ha under rice and 32,000 ha under wheat. Whereas, maize base cropping system is prevalent in Chitwan and Makwanpur districts covering 21,000 ha and 18,000 ha respectively under maize. In Nepal hub domain area, total production of rice, wheat & maize is 1.36 tons. Production of rice is maximum in Rupandehi district ( tons) (Figure 8) followed by Bara ( tons). Maximum wheat production (98150 tons) is also in Rupandehi district (Figure 9). Whereas, maize production (59658 tons) is highest in Chitwan (figure 10). Figure 8: District-wise production (tons) of rice of Nepal Hub

8 Figure 9: District-wise production (tons) of wheat of Nepal Hub Figure 10: District-wise production (tons) of maize of Nepal Hub Average yield of rice, wheat and maize of Nepal Hub domain area is 3.3 t//ha, 2.9 t/ha and 2.6 t/ha respectively. Inspite of only 13.10% cropped area covered under maize the productivity is remarkable. When we look into the statistical information of productivity of rice, it implicates that rice productivity is maximum in Bara (3.75 t/ha) followed by Parsa (3.6 t/ha) (figure 11). Similarly wheat productivity was highest in

9 Bara (3.3 t/ha) (figure 11). Inspite of highest maize area (21,000 ha) covered, Chitwan is at the second rank when productivity is concerned (2.8 t/ha) whereas Parsa covered only 4050 ha maize growing area the productivity was highest 3.1 t/ha (figure 11). Rupandehi Nawalparasi Chitwan Makwanpur Parsa Bara Figure 11: District-wise yield of rice, wheat & maize of Nepal Hub Figure 12: District-wise sale of urea (mt) in Nepal hub domain area

10 There are different types of fertilizers which are being used in Nepal. For example: urea, DAP, complex, A. Sulphate, TSP, potash and others. But two major fertilizers in Nepal Hub domain are urea and complex fertilizers. The sale figures of shows that maximum sale of urea is in Rupendehi ( mt) followed by Parsa ( mt) and minimum in Bara (17 mt) (Figure 12). Whereas, the sale of complex fertilizers in is highest Parsa (94.7 mt) followed by Rupendehi (79.3 mt) (Figure 13) and least sale in Bara district (Figure 13). Figure 13: District-wise sale of complex (mt) in Nepal hub domain area Acknowledgement Hub Communication Platform (HCP) acknowledges Nepal Hub team for providing data for characterization. We also thanks to CIMMYT- India staff for co-operation without which this work was not possible. Special thanks to Dr Raj Gupta (Theme leader Objective 1), Dr M L Jat (Cropping System Agronomist- CIMMYT) and Dr Yash (Senior Associate Scientist- IRRI) for all their support and guidance.