Returnee Migrants’ Reintegration into Agriculture in Nepal after COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

This paper aims to analyze the reintegration of returnee migrants into agriculture after COVID-19 in Nepal. The analysis is focused on how migration affects local economy and livelihoods of the people and what measures are taken by community and government to mitigate the effects of COVID -19 in reintegration of returnee migrants and engage them to revive the economy especially in agriculture sector. The economy of the world has been affected by COVID 19 pandemic outbreak since December 2019. Overarching effect of COVID -19 has impacted the multiple sectors along with migration, remittance, agriculture and food security systems of Nepal. The agriculture system impacted by outmigration of youths can be revived through engaging returnee migrants and remittances. People of all over the world are migrated globally and Nepalese young people are also the part of migrating in search of better opportunities abroad have been affected and returned to Nepal. The contribution of agriculture on rural economy of Nepal has been declining day by day due to outmigration of youth labour force and the lack of working manpower has created opportunity to rebound and strengthen taking as an opportunity. The major finding of this paper is that labor migrants, their livelihoods and food security were largely affected in the pandemic situation. There are high chances to reintegrate the returnee migrants in agriculture sector for better livelihood along with other sectors because agriculture is such a sector where mostly skilled and unskilled labour force can be absorbed. This article is primarily based on secondary sources of information along with direct observation and interaction of authors to different stakeholders related to present study.