Effect of Remittance on Farmer's Livelihood: A Case of Sundarbazar Municipality, Lamjung

Abstract

The study was conducted in Sundarbazar Municipality, Lamjung, western part of Nepal with primary objective of studying socioeconomic trend of the remittance-receiving households (HHs) and the effect of international labor migration in agricultural activities management. For the study, 60 HHs where at least one of the members were international labor migrant for >1 year; 20 each from Brahmin/Chhetri, Janajati/ Ethnic, and Dalit community were selected purposively. The HH snowball sampling technique and semistructured questionnaires were used. The study showed that majority of HH heads were female (68.3%), 80% of whom were involved in agriculture occupation with 50% HHs food insecure. Out of the total monthly cash income, 86.65% was contributed by remittance and 29.83% was used for food expenditure. The major push factor for migration was found to be unsatisfactory income (40%) where the 38.3% of the migrants were 26-30 years of age at the first migration with major destination as Gulf countries (80%). Similarly, 21.7% of HHs purchased agricultural land and the landholdings after the migration were found higher than before (7.3 vs. 6.2, P < 0.05). The major part of the agricultural activities after the migration was done with the hired labor (41.7%). Agricultural workload was perceived to be increased by 56.7% of HHs. Further, 26 HHs responded that livestock number decreased and 43% of HHs perceived no change in overall land productivity. Scaling technique showed that the average scale value for the inputs (chemical fertilizers, farmyard manure, and improved seeds) used after the migration was found to be 0.75 where 34 HHs had higher scale value than average which was moderately correlated (0.38) to the duration of migration.