Policy issues for mountain agriculture

1. Policies for value-added production:

• Existing policies rarely address the livelihoods diversity and vulnerability of mountain people, however, resulting in mountain communities and vulnerable groups having unequal access to opportunities.
• One reason for this is policy-makers’ limited awareness of the importance of mountain region and their people.

2. Provision of goods and services by mountain regions’ positive externalities:

• Mountain provides a wide range of good and services that are essential for the rest of society, creating interdependencies between upland and lowland areas.
• However, markets and national institutional and policy frameworks for agriculture and rural development often ignore lowlands’ dependency on inter linkage with mountain areas.
• As a result, the cultural diversity and livelihood of mountain communities, natural resources they steward and the public goods they provide are undervalued and may gradually diminishing.

3. Rural urban migration:

• Migration can help alleviate pressure on mountain lands and resources and provide opportunities for earning income through employment in urban areas and remittances.
• However, migration also places pressure on urban infrastructure and services.

4. Gender and equity issues :

• Mountain population tend to have weaker capacities to engaged in development and policy processes and are sometimes – internationally or unintentionally – excluded, thus generating or reinforcing inequalities.
• In particular, few policies are sensitive to gender issues, even though women play a significant role

5. Cultural Heritage:

• Mountain people can capitalize on their cultural heritage to achieve and share in mountain regions by producing handicrafts, maintaining sites and landscape of interest and driving other economic value for goods and services that are built on cultural traditions.