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CBA14 Marketplace: Climate Resilient Scalable Models on Land and Agriculture

Clean Energy Nepal together with NFGF, NLRF, LI-BIRD, and CSRC with the support of CARE Nepal develop and implement 8 different scalable resilient models.
Solar Pump in Contract Farming

Introduction

Nepal is prone to multiple types of hazards and is disproportionately affected by the effects of climate change. According to the Global Climate Risk Index 2016 it ranks as the 17th most vulnerable country.

The Samarthya project has identified, piloted and scaled number of models which will help reduce vulnerabilities and increase adaptive capacities in relation to climate change. The project has a national coverage but has extensively been piloting in Siraha, Udayapur and Okhaldhunga districts in partnership with people’ organizations; National Land Rights Forum (NLRF), National Farmers’ Groups Federation (NFGF), Community Self Reliance Centre (CSRC), Clean Energy Nepal (CEN) and Local Initiative for Biodiversity, Research and Development (LI-BIRD).

The Samarthya project developed “Climate Resilient Scalable Models and Guidelines on Land and Agriculture” to showcase the model works to local governments and relevant stakeholders. This process documentation aims to serve as a guide for those agencies who are involved in model piloting and scaling process. This is a live document; henceforth there will be further refinement in the different phases by incorporating learning from ongoing practices. These models will provide visible benefits so that small scale marginalized and women farmers adopt them with minimal external inputs, and also help promote them with local governments for subsequent implementation.

*Download the full guidance from the link:https://www.carenepal.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/pdfresizer.com-pdf-resize-13.pdf

Scalable models

The guidance present eight models.

Model 1: Climate Resilient Leasehold Farming Practice

This model’s uniqueness lies in fostering a strong sense of collective responsibility among the farmers to uphold the obligations of the land lease signed by their group leader, while creating opportunity for individual member household to own its share of the land, make effort to produce more and earn more individually. This becomes a big motivating factor for them. This is a successfully tested model that focuses on land-poor women farmers and advocates to local government to institutionalize and scale it up by citing concrete evidence of success including return on investment analysis. It champions optimum utilization of land resource generating employment and improving livelihoods of the most marginalized land-poor and landless communities. For the local government this model provides a direct link to the most marginalized farmers and the opportunity to rid them of their socio-economic predicaments.

Model 2: Farmers’ Identity Card with Categorization

This model is meant for establishing the identity of a community hitherto forgotten by the State – the most marginalized landless, land-poor and women farmers including agriculture laborers and ensuring their access to government services and facilities. This model is also an attempt to make the government revise its subsidy provision in view of the specific requirements of different categories of farmers and ensure the subsidies reach those who need them the most. As detailed household inventories are prepared in course of farmers’ categorization as per this model a wealth of data on the entire community will be available for the government to use as input for policy making, programming and planning purposes.

Model 3: Localized Agricultural Insurance Scheme

Despite the federal government’s effort to implement the national crop and livestock insurance programme requiring the country’s all 11 insurance companies to expand their services to every nook and corner of the country, it is not taking off. The companies are still confining their services to the district headquarters depriving farmers in remote areas of these services. Challenging this status quo, this model has emphasized the local government’s lead role in scaling out this service. Given their devolved mandates and their close proximity to the community people, rural/municipalities are well positioned to own and fulfill their leadership responsibility by making it mandatory for the insurance companies to cover also the remote areas. As evidenced by the Sunkoshi success story, such initiative of local government pays off well.

Model 4: Identification, Verification and Recording of Landless and Unplanned Settlers

Against this backdrop this model aims at a breakthrough in the country’s land administration system with particular focus on the land and settlements that still remain outside the formal cadastre. Community SelfReliance Centre (CSRC) designed and piloted this model in collaboration with the Federal Ministry of Land Management, Cooperatives and Poverty Alleviation (MoLMCPA) and Belaka Municipality of Udayapur district. Built on the impressive results and learning from its pilot roll out this model has been further refined for implementation at scale.

Model 5: Formulation of Participatory Land Use Plan at Municipal Level

This model aims at translating the devolution of policy and law turning authority to the local government level into reality. Most importantly it provides rural municipalities the opportunity to mark a departure from conventional exclusive approach to making laws which most often fail to reflect the realities of the citizens especially that of most vulnerable and marginalized communities. The model helps the local governments adopt and institutionalize inclusive and participatory process of developing and implementing laws which will enjoy the citizen’s ownership and serve the people as they are expected to.

This is participatory women and marginalized led process. This process takes need and interests of impact population in account which will be reflected in land use plan and policies related to land and livelihoods at local level. Based on this land use plan; local government sets priorities targeting women and marginalized people.

Model 6: Community Based Land Management Practice

Implementation of this model helps local government to protect and promote the most vulnerable group’s (landless and land poor farmers, squatters, woman farmers) fundamental rights by ensuring their land rights, access to safe housing and livelihood opportunity. Instead of highlighting problems related to land management and their effect on the most marginalized communities, and simply demanding that the local government improve the land management system, this model provides solution to the problems. It also provides the local government evidenced recommendations along with tested process for their implementation. The process calls for local government’s leadership role and the civil society’s full support for introducing and institutionalizing community-based land management practice at the local government level.

Model 7: Agro-met Advisory Service

On the one hand farmers in the remote villages are experiencing serious threat of climate change and weather variability to agriculture and their livelihood, while on the other they have no access to even existing useful information and services that would help them cope with the threats. www.namis.gov.np is a sincere attempt of Nepal Agricultural Research Council (NARC) at the federal government level to provide farmers with such information but it does not reach the farmers, who need it most despite the existence of local government and other institutional arrangements like municipal level agriculture unit, AKC etc. This is mainly because of a lack of political will and bureaucratic inertia at different levels of government. The model intends to break this inertia at local government level and energize the non-functional service delivery system demonstrating by example that farmers in remote areas can be served well in a sustainable manner should this model be adopted by the municipal level.

Model 8: Climate Resilient Local Seed System

Dependency of Nepalese agriculture on imported seed, especially hybrid, is increasing day by day. If the trend continues unabated, someday Nepalese seed system will be completely dependent, its genetic resources will be completely lost and even the country’s indigenous knowledge base seed system will be completely collapse. In view of this situation this model envisions a seed system that promotes climate resilient crop varieties through multi-sector engagement at the community level.

Imported seeds especially hybrid seeds is increasingly being used in Nepalese farming. This is creating high dependency on imported seeds which is unsustainable in Nepalese agriculture and food system. If this trend continues in the future, Nepalese traditional seed system and genetic resources will ultimately collapse which are highly adaptive to local climatic condition and requires less external inputs for production. Thus this model envisions to protect and promote local and sustainable seed system that decreases dependency on external inputs and increase adaptive capacity of women and vulnerable farmers. It also ensures multi-sector engagement of government, farmers group, seed producers and market actors at local level.

* Please refer to the guidance for much more details on each models, including scalable strategies.

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