Cropland Abandonment in the Community-Forestry Landscape in the Middle Hills of Nepal

Cropland abandonment has been a major land-use concern, threatening food security globally. Understanding the factors contributing to cropland abandonment advances land-use change science and provides essential information for policy making, both of which aim to improve agriculture land management. Despite many studies conducted on this topic, we still lack in-depth understanding on how feedbacks from the natural system influence cropland-use decisions at the household level in the human system. We fill this knowledge gap by conducting this study in the Middle Hills of Nepal, where community forestry is an integral part of the land-use system. We collected qualitative data through focus-group discussions, key-informant interviews, and review of local community-forest management documents, and we collected quantitative socioeconomic data through a household survey of 415 households. We geolocated 1264 cropland parcels owned by these households and recorded their use statuses. We found that there is an increasing trend of cropland abandonment that is due to multiple socioeconomic, ecological, and biophysical factors. A higher likelihood of cropland abandonment is linked to households that have more out-migrants, female heads, nonagricultural occupation of the household heads, and larger areas of agriculture landholding. The study also found that cropland parcels that are far from the households, close to the forest edge, and on steeper slopes are more likely to be abandoned. These findings provide key information for policy makers to devise effective measures on managing cropland and developing sustainable agriculture in rural Nepal.