K. Maharjan - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by K. Maharjan

Environmental Conservation, 2006

Non–timber forest product (NTFP) use is an integral part of the rural economy of Nepal, but littl... more Non–timber forest product (NTFP) use is an integral part of the rural economy of Nepal, but little is known about NTFP collection and marketing dynamics. This study investigated the intensity of NTFP collection, the financial benefits gained through the collection of a representative species, and the contextual factors influencing NTFP collection and sale in 12 villages of the Baitadi district of far western Nepal. Thirty-nine per cent of the economically active population collected a total of 24 NTFPs from 23 species, which contributed 0–90% of the total household income. A marketing chain and financial analysis of Valeriana jatamansi (sugandhwal) revealed that various trading and marketing channels existed from the village to district-level NTFP outlets. The price received by the collector depended on the length of the market chain and the political context of the market. Political instability resulting from the Maoist insurgency reduced profits from sugandhwal sale by 23–25%. The...

This study was carried out with the objective to assess food security situation of Mukta Kamaiyas... more This study was carried out with the objective to assess food security situation of Mukta Kamaiyas (former agriculture bonded-labourers) and to know their strategies to cope the food deficit. Two village development committees (VDCs), namely Kohalpur in Banke and Kalika in Bardiya districts respectively were purposively selected for the study. A random household survey with semi-structured questionnaire was carried out in 120 households thus each VDC having 60 households. The questionnaire consisted of basic household sojourn and food production situation. Simultaneously, focus group discussion (FGD) and Key Informant Interview were also made during the field survey. Only 4% households were food self-sufficient whilst the larger proportions (> 75% households) had less than three months food self-sufficiency. About 36% households were unable to meet the minimum daily calorie requirement (2,144 kcal/person/day) recommended for the terai region of Nepal. The food selfinsufficiency wa...

During the 1970s and 1980s, seed system support in developing countries was focused on strengthen... more During the 1970s and 1980s, seed system support in developing countries was focused on strengthening public sector institutions including agricultural research centers, extension services and state-owned seed corporations. This approach achieved limited success in Africa such that structural adjustment programs in the 1980s and 1990s resulted in general withdrawal of state seed system support. It created space especially for the private sector but also for civil society seed organizations while maintaining linkages with public sector agricultural research systems. The 1990s also saw the emergence of large-scale direct seed purchase and distribution, particularly in Africa, in response to natural disasters and crisis. Since 2000, agricultural development has been at very low levels with widespread under investment in the sector worldwide. However, there are now indications that donors are regaining interest in agriculture and especially in the seed sector...

Community seed banks are an effective local institution to conserve quality seeds, to strengthen ... more Community seed banks are an effective local institution to conserve quality seeds, to strengthen farmers’ accessibility to social seed networks, and improve agrobiodiversity and food security. This article analyses the prospects and challenges of community seed banks in climate change
contexts. It finds that community seed banks serve as sources of climate-resilient seeds to withstand in local climates and improve community resilience. Community seed banks provide landraces for participatory crop improvement to develop resistant varieties to improve quality and productivity. They also strengthen participatory seed exchange to cope with climate adversity. However, there are challenges with defining specific and common goals, functions, approaches, and governance.

Journal of viral hepatitis, Jan 12, 2016

Dear Editor, The massive earthquakes that hit Nepal on April 25 and May 12, 2015 claimed more tha... more Dear Editor, The massive earthquakes that hit Nepal on April 25 and May 12, 2015 claimed more than 8500 lives and displaced more than one million people to temporary shelters. During the recovery period, the monsoon season raised the possibility of significant water borne diseases such as bacterial diarrhoea, typhoid, hepatitis E and cholera. Some experts recommended that the HEV239 vaccine should be used to prevent an outbreak of hepatitis E virus (HEV) infections [1]. In the past, there have been several epidemics of HEV in Nepal – in Kathmandu in 1973, 1981–1982, 1987 and 2006–2007 and Biratnagar in 2014 [2–6] – and 310 HEV-infected pregnant women were documented in those epidemics [2–4]. Repeated epidemics of HEV in the Kathmandu valley may be related to the consumption of contaminated drinking water and the periodic migration of nonimmune people from the endemic areas of the country [5]. Following the earthquake, many predicted that the monsoon would be associated with another epidemic of HEV and suggested that immunization should be introduced. Local residents of the Kathmandu valley have a high prevalence of immunity against HEV (78% of people have IgG antibodies against HEV), whereas people from other cities and nearby areas have a much lower prevalence (25%). Although outbreaks of diarrhoeal and other waterborne diseases are frequent in rural hilly areas, outbreaks of HEV have not been documented in this population, and following the earthquake, there were concerns that an outbreak of HEV may develop. Basnyat et al. projected that nearly 2000 pregnant women in disaster-affected areas might acquire HEV infection with mortality of 500 [1]. However, in our opinion, vaccinating pregnant women (comprising less than 5% of the population) would have little value as the remaining 95% of the displaced population would remain at risk of acquiring HEV. The resulting morbidity and mortality could be substantial among the nonimmune population, and we do not believe that it is justified to ignore them. Furthermore, vaccinating 48 000 pregnant women with three doses on the dawn of monsoon would take six months, and this would make the present vaccination campaign ineffective, at a considerable cost. Vaccination against HEV would clearly not protect recipients from other water borne diseases and might provoke a false sense of security. In our view, safe provision of drinking water alone would be the single most important preventive measure and would be likely to prove cost-effective and generalizable to both pregnant and nonpregnant populations. Rapid and extensive campaigns to ensure safe water at household levels would have a profound impact on prevention and control of HEV outbreaks and should be preferred to vaccination, the safety of which has yet to be established in pregnancy.

Climate change is a complex and cross-cutting issue in Nepal that needs joint initiatives and eff... more Climate change is a complex and cross-cutting issue in Nepal that needs joint initiatives and efforts from all sectors at all levels to minimize its impacts. The government has developed climate policies, plans and frameworks – NAPA, National Climate Change Policy, LAPA and now in the process of developing National Adaptation Plans (NAPs). This paper has explored the views and experiences of climate experts in Nepal on the state of climate policies, its interlinkages, roles and responsibilities of ministries and departments, important factors to be considered and subjective indicators for effective implementation of policies. Altogether 30 experts responded the questionnaire sent via the email, LinkedIn and Skype Interview. The experiences of the experts’ ranges from 2 to 30 years in the field representing governmental and non-governmental sectors including media and independent experts. The policies in Nepal are progressing in a more strategic direction with national and local prio...

Realizing the importance of food self-sufficiency in achieving the household food security, this ... more Realizing the importance of food self-sufficiency in achieving the household food security, this paper tried to assess the food self-sufficiency situation in village areas of Nepal. Agriculture was the main source of livelihood and Bahun/Chhetri was the dominant ethnic group. Involvement of households in agriculture was found declining with the attainment of higher level of education resulting into higher concentration of illiterate and just literate manpower in this sector. The major resource determining food self-sufficiency of households, land holding and coverage of irrigation was higher among Bahun/Chhetri ethnic group and in Tarai ecological region. The better irrigation coverage together with relatively high access to production resources led to the higher crop yield among Bahun/Chhetri ethnic group and in Tarai. Thus, Tarai was experiencing surplus food crops production, which was merely enough to fulfill the deficit of Hills and Mountain regions. Food self-sufficiency was a...

Journal of Mountain Science, 2011

We study the rank of commutator [A η ,A * η ] of truncated Toeplitz operators A η and A * η with ... more We study the rank of commutator [A η ,A * η ] of truncated Toeplitz operators A η and A * η with several type of inner symbols η on the model space H θ with finite Blaschke product θ .

Rice is the most important staple food crop grown in Nepal. This study tries to analyze the produ... more Rice is the most important staple food crop grown in Nepal. This study tries to analyze the production situation and production efficiency of rice in different development regions of Nepal. In this study 480 farmers were selected randomly from 12 districts representing entire five development regions and surveyed using semi-structured questionnaire. This information was supplemented by the information obtained from group discussions, observations and other secondary sources. With average landholding of 1.6 ha/household, 64.6% of the respondents were growing rice under 1 ha of land on an average. Western Development Region dominated all other development regions in terms of average production, marketed amount and yield. The benefit-cost ratio of rice production was the highest in Central Development Region indicating the most efficient production practice in the country. This is mainly due to easy availability and judicious use of production inputs. The overall net profit was Rs 16,1...

Climate change is a complex and cross-cutting issue in Nepal that needs joint initiatives and eff... more Climate change is a complex and cross-cutting issue in Nepal that needs joint initiatives and efforts from all sectors at all levels to minimize its impacts. The government has developed climate policies, plans and frameworks-NAPA, National Climate Change Policy, LAPA and now in the process of developing National Adaptation Plans (NAPs). This paper has explored the views and experiences of climate experts in Nepal on the state of climate policies, its inter-linkages, roles and responsibilities of ministries and departments, important factors to be considered and subjective indicators for effective implementation of policies. Altogether 30 experts responded the questionnaire sent via the email, LinkedIn and Skype Interview. The experiences of the experts' ranges from 2 to 30 years in the field representing governmental and non-governmental sectors including media and independent experts. The policies in Nepal are progressing in a more strategic direction with national and local p...

国際協力研究誌 Journal of International Development and Cooperation, Mar 1, 2014

Maintaining sanitation is important for well-being and dignity of people, and its consideration i... more Maintaining sanitation is important for well-being and dignity of people, and its consideration in water supply system is very important because majority of human diseases are water borne. These diseases might have enormous loss on economic and social sectors. Bangladesh being a highly populated country with inefficient waste management system, sanitation in drinking water supply has been a serious issue. This study reviewed existing literatures about the sanitation concerns in Bangladesh focusing on water supply system. The study shows that sanitation issue is poorly addressed in projects/programs related to water supply system. Some efforts have been made to integrate sanitation issue in water supply, but it has been poorly budgeted and activities of government and non-government activities are not integrated. To address this issue, this study recommend total sanitation framework. This framework could be useful to integrate sanitation issue in the current water supply system, brining the innovations from government and non-government agencies in the same platform.

Journal of Mountain Science, 2011

The study reveals that 10.2% of the sampled households in Nepal suffer from chronic food insecuri... more The study reveals that 10.2% of the sampled households in Nepal suffer from chronic food insecurity, i.e., neither are they able to produce sufficient food from their farms nor earn the food security threshold income for deficit months. With the highest and the lowest exponential value of coefficient obtained from binary logistic regression model, it is concluded that any program targeting occupational caste and small landholding farm category or landless will contribute significantly to reduce food insecurity. The provision of employment opportunities for economically active age group, thus, reducing dependency ratio from 1.2 (economically active population) to 0.7 (economically active age group) can also contribute significantly to reduce food insecurity. Significant positive coefficient of family size squared shows the increase in the probability of being foodinsecure with the increase in family size. In addition, an increase in irrigation availability can contribute significantl...

Development in Practice

Community seed banks are an effective local institution to conserve quality seeds, to strengthen ... more Community seed banks are an effective local institution to conserve quality seeds, to strengthen farmers’ accessibility to social seed networks, and improve agrobiodiversity and food security. This article analyses the prospects and challenges of community seed banks in climate change contexts. It finds that community seed banks serve as sources of climate-resilient seeds to withstand in local climates and improve community resilience. Community seed banks provide landraces for participatory crop improvement to develop resistant varieties to improve quality and productivity. They also strengthen participatory seed exchange to cope with climate adversity. However, there are challenges with defining specific and common goals, functions, approaches, and governance.

International Journal of Applied Sciences and Biotechnology

The lands, territories and resources of indigenous peoples (IPs) have been of significant histori... more The lands, territories and resources of indigenous peoples (IPs) have been of significant historical importance to their livelihoods, cultures and spiritual identities. Over 370 million indigenous peoples are currently living in 70 countries in the world, mostly in remote, ecologically fragile and marginalized areas that are rich in traditional skills, knowledge and practices. Climate change is a global issue, impacting all livelihood sectors at the national and local levels. The poor and marginalized people, especially indigenous peoples, Dalits and women are in the forefront of its vulnerability and impacts. These people and communities have made the lowest contributions to the greenhouse gases emissions, however, they are the most at risks to its impacts. Furthermore, the policies and programs often marginalize and sideline the voices and issues of these people. This paper attempts to gather, review and analyze the information on indigenous knowledge, issues of indigenous peoples...

Cogent Food & Agriculture, 2017

The severity of climate change impacts is observable and devastating at the local level, especial... more The severity of climate change impacts is observable and devastating at the local level, especially among the poor and ethnic people settled in the marginal and ecologically fragile areas, because of their least adaptive capacities and resilience. Thus, it is crucial to understand the local climatic risks, vulnerabilities and adaptive capacities to develop appropriate coping and adaptation strategies. However, the reliable climate data and information are not available at local level because of few meteorological stations. Therefore, this study has concentrated on participatory approaches to assess and analyze the climate vulnerabilities and impacts, needs and priorities of the community in Madi valley of Chitwan district. The study has applied participatory tools in the focus group discussions in the valley with a total of 112 participants. The communities in the study site observed flood, drought and riverbank erosion are the most severe climatic threats to them with different intensities based on age, caste, class, gender and sectors. They, further, perceived that wildlife attacks from Chitwan National Park are more dangerous as they affect their livelihoods throughout the year, though more severe in crop harvesting time. The farmers perceived natural and policy factors are highly influential in causing climate change. The major adaptation interventions found in the valley are afforestation and early warning siren and evacuation tower that the communities believe comparatively effective than others.

国際協力研究誌, Mar 1, 2012

Agriculture, being sector largely dependent on climate variables, will be adversely affected by c... more Agriculture, being sector largely dependent on climate variables, will be adversely affected by climate change. Therefore, this paper intends to assess how the recent trends of climate variables are affecting yields of major food crops in two hilly districts of Nepal namely, Makwanpur and Ilam based on district level data from 1978-2008. Trends of climate variables show that maximum and minimum temperature in summer as well as winter temperatures are increasing in Makwanpur, but in Ilam minimum temperature in both season shows declining trend. In case of rainfall, it is in increasing trend only during summer in Makwanpur. In all cases inter-annual variation of rainfall is very high. In contrast, crop yield shows some steady trends but in both directions; increase as well as decrease. For instance, except the yield of paddy and maize in Makwanpur, and maize and millet in Ilam all other food crops are in increasing trend. Among these food crops potato shows the highest rate of yield increase. Relating the trends of climate variables with yield of food crops shows that the current trend of minimum temperature has adversely affected yield of maize and paddy in Makwanpur, whereas in Ilam decreasing trend of rainfall has affected yield of paddy adversely. Despite the suppression of yield of these food crops by current trend of climate variables, most of these food crops overcame such suppression leading to the increase in overall yield. However, paddy, maize and millet are not able to overcome such suppression leading to decline in overall yield, thus requires special attention in order to cope with adverse effect of climate change in days to come.

Kokusai kyoryoku kenkyushi, Jan 30, 2012

This paper describes changes of species composition and population of flora in space and time in ... more This paper describes changes of species composition and population of flora in space and time in western Chitwan, Nepal. This paper also discusses on the changes in flora due to flood and human activities. To illustrate these changes, we used survey data collected from January to April of 1996, 2000, and 2007 from the Barandabhar forest, National Park forest and the forests along the Narayani River banks, grasslands of National Park and common lands of western Chitwan as a part of longitudinal study on "reciprocal relation of population and the environment". From these data, density values were calculated to analyze spatial and temporal changes in flora species composition and population. We also noted the changes of top species in time and space in due course of time. If the species and its rank not changed, their densities (population) values of flora species changed. We found that changes in species composition, population, appearance or disappearance of flora from a pa...

Regional Environmental Change, 2013

This study analyzes the factors influencing the adoption of various adaptation practices by a hig... more This study analyzes the factors influencing the adoption of various adaptation practices by a highly marginalized indigenous community in the remote rural Mid-Hills of Nepal. The analysis is based on a household survey conducted among 221 Chepang households selected randomly. A multivariate probit model was used to analyze five categories of adaptation choices against a set of socioeconomic , institutional, infrastructural, and perception variables. Perception of rainfall changes, size of landholding, status of land tenure, distance to motor road, access to productive credit, information, extension services, and skill development trainings are all influential to enable households to deviate away from traditional coping strategies and adopt suitable practices to adapt to climate vagaries. Policies and development activities should be geared to address these determinants in order to facilitate adaptation. Keywords Adaptation choices Á Climate change and extremes Á Chepang Á Multivariate probit

Journal of International Development and …, 2008

Involvement of higher proportion of economically active population in agriculture and laboring am... more Involvement of higher proportion of economically active population in agriculture and laboring among the Occupational caste resulted into higher incidence of poverty, which is also severe and deeper. This resulted into as high as 71% incidence of poverty in ...

Environmental Conservation, 2006

Journal of viral hepatitis, Jan 12, 2016

Journal of Mountain Science, 2011

Climate change is a complex and cross-cutting issue in Nepal that needs joint initiatives and eff... more Climate change is a complex and cross-cutting issue in Nepal that needs joint initiatives and efforts from all sectors at all levels to minimize its impacts. The government has developed climate policies, plans and frameworks-NAPA, National Climate Change Policy, LAPA and now in the process of developing National Adaptation Plans (NAPs). This paper has explored the views and experiences of climate experts in Nepal on the state of climate policies, its inter-linkages, roles and responsibilities of ministries and departments, important factors to be considered and subjective indicators for effective implementation of policies. Altogether 30 experts responded the questionnaire sent via the email, LinkedIn and Skype Interview. The experiences of the experts' ranges from 2 to 30 years in the field representing governmental and non-governmental sectors including media and independent experts. The policies in Nepal are progressing in a more strategic direction with national and local p...

国際協力研究誌 Journal of International Development and Cooperation, Mar 1, 2014

Journal of Mountain Science, 2011

Development in Practice

Community seed banks are an effective local institution to conserve quality seeds, to strengthen ... more Community seed banks are an effective local institution to conserve quality seeds, to strengthen farmers’ accessibility to social seed networks, and improve agrobiodiversity and food security. This article analyses the prospects and challenges of community seed banks in climate change contexts. It finds that community seed banks serve as sources of climate-resilient seeds to withstand in local climates and improve community resilience. Community seed banks provide landraces for participatory crop improvement to develop resistant varieties to improve quality and productivity. They also strengthen participatory seed exchange to cope with climate adversity. However, there are challenges with defining specific and common goals, functions, approaches, and governance.

International Journal of Applied Sciences and Biotechnology

Cogent Food & Agriculture, 2017

国際協力研究誌, Mar 1, 2012

Kokusai kyoryoku kenkyushi, Jan 30, 2012

Regional Environmental Change, 2013

Journal of International Development and …, 2008