Sustainable agriculture and the environment : Nepal case study

The assessment identifies the program-level changes introduced by USAID to improve land productivity conservation,' a concept which implies a linkage between cropland conservation and agricultural intensification. In Nepal, this linkage incorporates erosion control, soil moisture conservation techniques, agroforestry, and intensive use of organic fertilizers in order to support production increases and diversification into commercial agriculture. The report includes findings on the effectiveness, economic efficiency, sustainability, and replicability of USAID's efforts; it identifies both broad lessons learned and outstanding issues of relevance to USAID's overall program of support to sustainable agriculture. Lessons learned are as follows. (1) Cropland conservation initiatives implemented through local organizations are more efficient and sustainable than top-down approaches. (2) Development programs must avoid exceeding local organizational and management capacity. (3) Activities targeting women and disadvantaged groups do have an impact and are sustainable. (4) Natural resource conservation, in the long run, requires less effort than does rehabilitation of degraded landscapes. (5) Soil and water conservation efforts should target small subwatersheds. (6) Farmers are willing to conduct soil and water conservation practices if they can use the improved agricultural land for new economic enterprises. (7) Natural resource conservation efforts require a long term commitment in order to achieve lasting results. Farmers began to have genuine interest in land conservation practices only after 6 years of project involvement. The assessment identified four outstanding issues: (1) Can community development be driven by the sale of natural resources from public lands? (2) While organic matter from public forests contributes to soil fertility on private farmlands, it is not yet clear what level of fodder and forest litter can be sustainably transferred from forest to fields. (3) Food self-sufficiency may not be a realistic goal in some resource-poor farming regions. (4) Decentralization policies and new forms of local administration leave open the questions of conflict resolution.