Home Gardens in Nepal

concept in these areas is regarded as one of the major causes for the shift in farmers’
cultivation system. The burning is an issue under debate nowadays even among most of the
shifting cultivators.

Chepang communities have a small parcel of rainfed land besides khoriya. The bari land
(rainfed) is comparatively more fertile and productive than khoria land. Most of the farmers
have strong interest to develop khoria into bari land in future. They have, however,
developed a certain portion of khoria through terrace improvement methods. Besides bari
land, small parcel of home garden is also prevalent in the area.

Sources of livelihood
Agriculture is the main source of livelihood for the majority of the households in these areas.
However, since the farming is largely subsistence oriented, and the agricultural produces are
not adequate to sustain their livelihood throughout the year, the majority of the households
also depend on wage labouring for additional income as well as the collection of uncultivated
wild food for maintaining their daily requirements. Few households also earn their living from
services within the village, and few of them are service holders outside the country as well.
The selling of homemade liquor is also a source of cash income of some of the households.
Occupational enterprises like carpentry, making iron ware and masonry works (house
construction) are also the cash generation activities to support their livelihood.

Food sufficiency
Based on the case study of two
Chepang villages of Gorkha and
Tanahun, more than 68.8% of
households experience varying degrees
of food deficit, which was observed up
to nine months and over in a year
(Figure 2). They adopted various sorts
of mechanism to fulfill their food
requirements during the deficit period,
such as buying food with their own
money that was earned from wage
laboring, and selling agriculture products
including livestock. Most of the
households in Tanahun depend on wild
foods collected from the forest during
food deficit months i.e. from Falgun to
Shrawan.
Figure 2: Distribution of households by food
sufficiency categories.
Species found in Home Gardens
LI-BIRD conducted baseline studies in some parts of Gorkha and Tanahun districts.
Besides, LI-BIRD also carried out a study of different shifting cultivation systems found in
Nepal with financial support from International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development
(ICIMOD). The study was carried out in some pocket areas of Taplejung, Sankhuwasaba,
Dhading and Nawalparai based on the intensity of slash and burn system.

The findings suggest that home gardens have not been used wisely by farmers. More of the
dependency was seen towards shifting land areas and wild foods. The homestead
contributes less to the family nutrition and diet but is still used as a source of fodder and
forage. The species composition in the homestead is relatively less compared to the other
home gardens in the country. The comparative analysis of species found in home gardens of
Ilam (Gautam et. al., 2004) and the average species found in six different slash and burn
pocket areas in Nepal (Taplejung, Sankhuwasaba, Dhading, Nawalparasi, Tanahun and

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

0-6 6-9 9-12 12+

Months

percentage

Gorkha

Tanahun