Results from the sustainability assessment of riverbed farming in Nepal

In spring 2013, Ms. Katharina Schiller (MSc student, University of Hohenheim) investigated the sustainability of leasehold riverbed vegetable farming in the Terai of Nepal. She interviewed landless and land-poor farmers in Kailali and Kanchanpur districts in Far-Western Nepal. These farmers leased a minimum of 1354 m² (4 kattha, local land area unit) of seasonally dry riverbed from the community or private land owners to produce cucumbers, bottle and bitter gourds, pumpkins, and watermelons for market sale.

Riverbed farming group in Hasuliya, Nepal

On average, riverbed farmers earned US$ 236.46 (NPR 20,808.24) from 1354 m² of land, with 3 members of the household contributing farm labor. Thus, riverbed farming enabled households to gain extra income as well as created opportunities for employment of household members. 70% of households reported a reduction in male out-migration in search of work to Nepalese or Indian urban centers. Extra income is spent on children's education, food, and household needs. Farmers from groups that have been farming the riverbed for five years or more have been able to accumulate enough capital to diversify their income opportunities. Some farmers are investing in market center shops, such as cell phone repair shops; several are leasing increasingly large tracts of riverbed and hiring local wage laborers to till it, creating additional rural employment opportunities for other village households. One farmer's husband opened a roadside restaurant, ingenious since it creates both an immediate market and a value-added component for the produce.

Riverbed farming is an agricultural technology with minimal negative environmental impact. It uses no energy besides human labor, irrigation is necessary only if vegetables are grown on riverbanks, not in the riverbeds, and it doesn't disturb the neighborhood with dust or noise. Since the rivers change course often, requiring new beds to be dug, and farmers use comparatively small amounts of chemical inputs. By covering the sandy riverbeds, riverbed farming contributes to mitigating sandy dust in the air (reduction of sand erosion). Also, the use of marginal land such as riverbeds eases production pressure on arable land.

Also, riverbed farming has several positive features. According to interviewed farmers, riverbed farming is an easy-to-learn approach. Since it is based on lease of the riverbeds, it doesn't have large start-up costs in terms of physical capital required. Different types of spill-over effects were observed: The technology has been independently replicated in several places by neighbors or in neighboring villages. It was observed that not only the farmers themselves but also other family members and neighbors gathered to listen during information sessions with Local Resource Persons. Additionally, riverbed farmers are applying their new skills, such as the use of compost or mulching, in their home gardens as well.
All these criteria are taken into account for calculating a composite sustainability indicator of riverbed farming when comparing it with other technologies that the SATNET Asia project has collected with the help of its associates and network members.

Opportunities for the future support of riverbed farmers include facilitating a stronger infrastructure so farmers enjoy easier access to markets for both input buying and produce sales. A few groups traded surplus vegetables for grains and goods within the village, but most farmers reported travel times of 1-2 hours by foot, bicycle or buffalo-drawn cart to the nearest market center to buy seeds or sell their produce. Ensuring access to seeds early in the growing season is crucial: an early planting enables an early harvest, which fetches a much higher market price than during high season, when the marketplace is glutted with vegetables both local and from neighboring India. Another option to aid an early harvest is the construction of a group seedling nursery in winter, so vegetables can be planted in early spring. Other opportunities lie in the creation of savings or crop insurance cooperatives to mitigate short-term environmental risk, introducing Integrated Pest Management strategies to reduce use of pesticides and contribute to increasing biodiversity, offering additional business training sessions to help farmers diversify their income opportunities, creating stronger linkages to other local projects (like community seed banks in neighboring areas), and more farmer-to-farmer meetings for knowledge sharing.