No abstract

Poverty and hunger reduction are intertwined challenges and enduring issues in the world, particularly in developing countries. Improvement in the effi ciency in vegetable farming helps the farmers increase the per capita income, reduce poverty and eventually improve the livelihood of smallholder farmers. Th is paper evaluates economic effi ciency of vegetable farms in Nepal using a non-parametric data envelopment analysis (DEA) approach. Th e results show evidence to suggest that vegetable farms in Nepal have a considerable potential for improving the vegetable production effi ciency with a greater access to improved seed, agricultural credit, and training and extension services. Some policies options with regard to the vegetable production technology, and support services for farmers in general and women farmers in particular, are suggested to increase the farm effi ciency. While some of these support services are currently available, we suggest that a more focus be given to creating the improved market access, to the women focused extension, and to training packages for the sustainable production. Th ese support services can lead to increases in the farm income and to reduce poverty.

Inefficient marketing service increases price spread, which is a common feature in developing countries. The study aimed to analyze factors affecting retail-price spread of rice in Nepal using the Relative Price Spread (RPS) model with cross section data collected from four districts namely Jhapa, Morang, Chitwan, and Rupandehi in 2008. The flow of the product was traced forward and backward from the selected wholesaler respondents for selecting the farmer and the retailor respondents randomly. The marketing margin is higher in the farm to wholesale market as compared to the wholesale to retail market. The result revealed that the marketing cost, wholesale price of rice, retail prices of rice, and market information to the farmer significantly influence the marketing margin. Reduction in the transportation cost, improving the market information system, and improving the role of farmer in price determination help reduce the marketing margin.

This study assessed the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on production, trade and income of smallholder vegetables growers in the Kathmandu valley, Nepal. We made a scenario-based situation analysis of pre-COVID (January to March 2020) and COVID-19 pandemic induced lockdown (April to June 2020) situations. The study used a descriptive research design and employed multistage sampling techniques. One hundred forty-five vegetable growers were surveyed and six focus group discussions were carried out between May to July 2020 in the three municipalities- Chandragiri, Mahalaxmi and Changunarayan of Kathmandu, Lalitpur and Bhaktapur districts respectively. The study showed that the income of smallholders' vegetable growers was decreased by 66.1 percent due to an increase in input price (16.9 percent), a decrease in output price (62.67 percent), and low farm productivity (9.3 percent) in comparison with the pre-COVID period. This paper has figured out the impact pathways that caused the income decline of vegetable growers. The primary constraints to smallholder producers were the absence of local aggregators followed by transportation barriers, limited market opening hours, and mobility obstruction and changed consumers' behavior due to lockdown. Majority of the farmers adjusted to the situations by selling their products at lower prices, free distribution to the local inhabitants, and composting and dumping the surpluses. The study concluded that this kind of analysis is necessary to develop resilient supply chains and extend appropriate support to the smallholder farmers who are critical actor to the supply chains.

Enhancing profit efficiency in vegetable farming is important to increase income, livelihoods, and nutrition security, and to reduce poverty of smallholder farmers, particularly in developing countries. This study examined the profit efficiency and its determinants in smallholder vegetable farms in Nepal using the stochastic translog profit function with cross-section data collected in 2013. The results revealed a high level of inefficiency in vegetable farms because of the combined effects of technical, allocative, and scale inefficiencies. The profitability differential in vegetable farms is significantly explained by input variables, namely, labor, land, seeds, fertilizer, pesticides, and capital. The determinants of profit inefficiency in vegetable farming were the types of crop varieties, access to information and extension services, access to agricultural credit, distance of farms to markets, and sex of farm manager. The profit efficiency in vegetable farming can be enhanced by adopting improved seed varieties, improving effective information and extension programs, increasing accessibility of credit facilities to the farmers, developing market infrastructure, and empowering women farmers in vegetable farming that leads to improve household income and nutrition security.