Socio-economic and environmental aspects of farming practices in the peri-urban hinterlands of Nepal

Type Journal Article - Journal of Agriculture and Environment
Title Socio-economic and environmental aspects of farming practices in the peri-urban hinterlands of Nepal
Author(s)
Volume 11
Publication (Day/Month/Year) 2010
Page numbers 26-39
URL https://www.nepjol.info/index.php/AEJ/article/viewFile/3649/3130
Abstract
Spatial location of the farm households shapes farming practices and livelihoods of the
farmers. Many socio-economic variables have strong spatial relations that would otherwise
be missed by data aggregation at household level. Geographic Information System (GIS)
provides display and analysis of socio-economic data that may be fundamental for many
social scientists to understand socio-economic reality influenced by geographical position
of the farm households. Present article aims at integrating socio-economic data into GIS
environment to examine spatial relation in the resource availability and use employing
spatial and random sampling techniques. Result demonstrates the variation in the socioeconomic
attributes along the spatial gradient which is mainly related to the
infrastructures such as road, market and improved agro-inputs. While households with
better access to these infrastructures have tendency to use more agro-chemicals, have
larger family, land holding and livestock units, better off-farm opportunities, commercial
farming orientation and hence higher family income; opposite is true for the households
with poor access to these infrastructures. Peri-urban farmlands, wherever agro-chemicals
are applied imprudently, faces the problems of agro-ecological degradation while rural
subsistence farming faces the problem of spatial poverty

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