Agriculture and Environment in the Eastern Nepal Himalayas

The changes from traditional to modern production system from 1980 to 2002 are resulted due to interactions of various fields such as economy, ecology, off-farm employment and politics that brought changes in the agricultural landscape. This study has demonstrated the dynamic interactions of farmers access to and availability of different resources through road networks, social networks and markets that have brought changes in the farming system. It is because of changing production system, previously unused and marginal lands are now converted to high value cash crops that has resulted the changes in human perception to land, the produces and the social groups living there. Moreover, farmers have started growing fodder trees and private forest due to which forest coverage has increased, landslide and gullies are better managed, hence there is less soil erosion and sedimentation to downstream. These changes in agriculture and environment are neither just an intensification nor involution; rather it is understood as agricultural evolution.