Basic Issues of Mountain Agriculture

a) Population dynamics:

• Demand has been increasingly rapidly due to the unprecedented growth in mountain population and that is the threat to all efforts that renders mountain agriculture sustainability.
• If the current growth rate continues, most of the areas of Hindu-Kush region will easily double with the population in next few years which leads to the increase in the pressure on natural resources and its result is that sustainability of mountain agriculture breaks.

b) Macro-economic policies:

• These refer to the policies particularly relating to investment and resource transfer dynamics.
• It is further described under following two headings:

I)Use of resources:

• The goal of micro economic policies in the mountain areas have been directed towards the extraction of mountain resources largely for use in non-mountain hinter land or in urban areas.
• The additional shorter consideration has been revenue maximization.
• The phenomenal growth in demand for the mountain resources induce by distant market signal with the complete disregard for resource use intensification question in the fragile mountain ecosystem can be attributed to the above policies.

II) Investment level:

• Structure of investment and level of resource allocation are the two factors that determine the pace and process of transformation in mountain areas.
• Overhead costs of operation are too high in mountain.
• The implications of these factor are more serious for mountain area that does not have a reach in non-hinter land for resource mobilization as in the case of Nepal.

c) Infrastructural development:

• Investment should be made on infrastructure development like road, energy, irrigation, etc.
• Mountain agriculture situation in Nepal is lagging miles behind that of developed countries due to inadequate infrastructures.
• Moreover Nepalese landscape is more aggressive than any other mountains. So construction works are not so easy.
• Fragile mountain ecology and steepness of the slope hinders the infrastructure development process of the country. Such geographical obstacles also make infrastructure development very costly.

d) Institutional imperatives for mountain resource management:

• Involvement of local people in identifying the components of local development projects and means and mechanisms to implement them is efficient.
• The people’s better understanding of their resources base and environment institutional strength and self-help devices are responsible for this.
• Local involvement would also facilitate the people access and command over local resources.
• Advocacy for mountain people and mountain causes like local concerns, resource security equity and gender perspectives can be more effective through the use of local level institutions.

e) Science and technology:

• The central focus of science and technology for mountain has to be on mountain specifities as a source of constraints and opportunities which can be managed or harnessed through modern science and technology.

Approaches would involve:

• Combining resource centered and crop centered technology to achieve higher productivity without degradation of resources.
• Blending of traditional system to modern system.
• Reformulating of global issues concerning science and technology.
• Protecting and harnessing of the mountain resources.
• Focus on wider adoptability of technology.