Socioeconomic Analysis of Organic and Inorganic Farmers in Chitwan District of Nepal <Article>

Organic farming is an emerging concept in Nepal but its share to total agricultural area remains much smaller. The objective of this study is to assess socioeconomic factors to identify the underlying issues that led some farmers to adopt organic while some to practice only partial organic or inorganic farming system. The study was conducted in Chitwan district where indiscriminate use of agro-chemicals is very much existent but the concept of organic farming is also emerging especially in three village development committees (VDCs) within the district; namely Phoolbari, Shivanagar and Mangalpur and thus were selected as study areas. The survey was conducted using purposive sampling method to select 300 individual households and were interviewed through semi structured questionnaire. Other methods applied were researcher's observation and participatory methods. The collected data was analyzed using multinomial logit model. Results show that male headed households, age and education of household head, farming experience, and those with bigger farm size and having intention to increase farm income are more inclined towards inorganic farming. Farming as main occupation of household head, labor availability, livestock holding and non-farm income source encouraged farmers to shift to organic farming. Thus, these factors should be taken into consideration while introducing organic farming. More significantly membership in a group formed for the purpose of organic farming and the extent of activities such as training conducted through it has been very much successful in encouraging farmers to convert to organic or at least partial organic farming and has indirect impact on neighboring non-member farmers. Thus, formation of such groups in other areas could be the most effective tool for large scale conversion to organic farming