ABSTRACT

Farming systems of western Nepal are home to isolated, poverty-stricken people who must cope with weak agricultural extension services and negative effects of climate change. Our research objective was to identify, implement, and assess a suite of interventions promoting climate change preparedness and poverty reduction for two traditional farming communities in Bajura District. Participatory processes were first used to identify priority problems and solutions. Residents then received an intervention package implemented over 16 months that was targeted for problem solving and founded on non-formal education (NFE) training modules. Following the intervention period, a random sample of households gave their trend perceptions for 24 socioeconomic and agroecosystem attributes, and findings were compared with those from adjacent control communities lacking interventions in a quasi-experimental approach. Results indicated that community-based participation was an effective diagnostic research tool that allowed priority problems to be ranked and linked to either climate change or other factors of under-development. This sharpened our focus for the intervention phase. The intervention package had positive effects (P ≤ .047) on 23 of 24 attributes with particularly notable impacts on altering previous attitudes and beliefs, improving skill sets, boosting cash incomes, and supporting a more diversified mix of agricultural enterprises largely based on existing technologies. Improved goat production and marketing, however, was the main driver for socioeconomic change. In sum, improved risk management, widespread adoption of a planning mentality, and expansion of community-based collaborations were keys to success. We estimated that the intervention package was generally inexpensive, costing from US$ 1.48 to 4.75 per beneficiary. We concluded that use of participatory processes and NFE-based interventions can achieve impact quickly here. These are important means to build human capacity and community resilience, especially in places where implementation of novel, climate-smart agricultural technologies is difficult.

摘要

尼泊尔西部的农业系统是与世隔绝的贫困人口的家园，他们必须应对农业推广服务薄弱和气候变化的负面影响。我们的研究目标是为巴朱拉区的两个传统农业社区确定、实施和评估一套促进气候变化准备和减贫的干预措施。参与式过程首先用于确定优先问题和解决方案。然后，居民收到了为期 16 个月的干预包，该干预包以解决问题为目标，并以非正规教育 (NFE) 培训模块为基础。在干预期之后，随机抽样的家庭对 24 个社会经济和农业生态系统属性给出了他们的趋势看法，并将结果与​​缺乏准实验方法干预的邻近对照社区的结果进行比较。结果表明，基于社区的参与是一种有效的诊断研究工具，可以对优先问题进行排序，并将其与气候变化或其他欠发达因素联系起来。这加强了我们对干预阶段的关注。一揽子干预措施产生了积极影响（磷 ≤ .047) 对 24 个属性中的 23 个属性具有特别显着的影响，这些属性对改变以前的态度和信念、提高技能组合、增加现金收入以及支持主要基于现有技术的更加多样化的农业企业组合具有特别显着的影响。然而，改进山羊生产和营销是社会经济变革的主要驱动力。总之，改进风险管理、广泛采用规划思维以及扩大基于社区的合作是成功的关键。我们估计干预方案通常不贵，每位受益人的成本为 1.48 美元至 4.75 美元。我们得出的结论是，使用参与式流程和基于 NFE 的干预措施可以在这里迅速产生影响。这些是建设人类能力和社区复原力的重要手段，特别是在实施新的、