The Last Straw

“The current water source is not sufficient even for drinking purposes so there is no chance of irrigation for crops and vegetables.”

Tamang woman, Chinke, Dolakha, Nepal

“We only plant those crops which need less water.”

Female water-user group in Ahaldanda, Dolakha, Nepal

Flexibility is a viable response to uncertainty

Tor H. Aase, CICERO

Thirdly , conspicuous consumption of items that give local merit can be substituted by items that do not take a toll on local agricultural production. One option in this area is to reduce the number of unproductive horses which would free more land for human food. Fourthly , lack of labour power due to migration has left a lot of agricultural land abandoned. Land works like a fat reserve that migrant families can live off if labour markets or businesses should fail. Farmers can keep the land in abeyance instead of selling it to other potential cultivators. The first three flexibilities are site-specific to Manang and other similar locations. The fourth one, however – abandoned land – is widespread throughout Nepal, especially in the Middle Hills and in Trans-Himalayan valleys where migration to domestic cities and abroad is substantial. Keeping cultivable land empty is optimal for the farmer whose main concern is to ensure food security for the family in a situation of increasing uncertainty. But what is optimal for the farmer proves to be sub-optimal for the country whose expressed goal is to achieve national food security.

Climate change means more variable weather which exposes farmers to an increasing level of uncertainty. Uncertainty, as opposed to risk, cannot be estimated. Farmers’ capacity to cope with unstable weather is largely determined by their flexibility, which implies that farmers can choose between a range of different production options that are open to them. In contrast to innovation, flexibility refers to crops or technolo- gies farmers are familiar with, but which are not cultivated or practiced at present. In the Trans- Himalayan valley of Manang, four flexibilities of the local farming system have been identified (Aase et al. 2009): Firstly , cultivation can be shifted from the slope to the previously uncultivated flat valley bottom where recent temperature increases have prolonged the frost-free season and water is more accessible. Secondly , a drier climate can be met by reverting to more resistant cultivars like barley instead of growing wheat, a crop which has increasingly substituted barley during the last decades.

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