Dynamics of value chain in climate resilient vegetable production practices

Climate resilient practices in farming is an integrated process that reduces risks in production and marketing. This study introduced an integrated package of climate resilient practices in vegetable farming to cope with climate change and related problems. The study that was carried out in Udayapur district of Nepal and it analyzed application of climate resilient practices in value chain of vegetable farming. The data were obtained from Himalica pilot project initiated by International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) which surveyed 300 vegetable farm households using a semi-structured questionnaire. In addition, a checklist was used for Focus Group Discussions (FGDs) with farmers’ groups. The collected data were coded and entered into Microsoft Excel and descriptive statistics such as frequency, percentage and mean were calculated. For the analysis of costs, revenue and profi tability, simple accounting method was used. The study shows that profi t of farmers depends on the market type and farmers revenue increases when they sell their produce through farmers’ co-operatives. Farmers need irrigation water, material supports, technology as well as organized farmers’ group in order to increase the profi t and to mitigate the risk from climate change and climate variability. The study found that climate resilient practices in vegetable value chain benefi ts farmers in terms of social, economic and environmental aspects. Research Article Dynamics of value chain in climate resilient vegetable production practices Ujjal Raj Acharya1* and Krishna Prasad Pant2 1Research Scholar, Central Department of Economics; Tribhuvan University, Kathmandu, Nepal 2Visiting Faculty, Central Department of Economics, Tribhuvan University, Kathmandu, Nepal Received: 09 January, 2021 Accepted: 15 February, 2021 Published: 17 February, 2021 *Corresponding author: Ujjal Raj Acharya, Research Scholar, Central Department of Economics; Tribhuvan University, Kathmandu, Nepal, E-mail:

Similarly, data were collected on climate resilient practices, such as effi cient use of water, land preparation techniques, cropping practices, use of compost and bio-pesticides (jholmol). Six FGDs, two in each of the three study areas, were conducted at to get additional information. Key persons including farmers' group representatives, farmers, Junior Technical Assistants (JTA) and members from Himalica project participated in the FGDs.

Data analysis
The collected data were coded and entered into Microsoft Excel and descriptive statistics such as frequency, percentage and mean were calculated. For the analysis of costs, revenue and profi tability, simple accounting method was used.
Marketing margins were calculated for different channels of vegetable marketing available for the smallholder farmers in the villages by fi nding the difference between farmgate price received by the farmers and retail price paid by the consumers for the same product.

Result & Discussions
Farmers have been selling their product at farmgate through local traders, local market directly and farmers' cooperatives.
Since the local market is small for higher amount of production, farmers opted to sell their produce to major market in district headquarter Gaighat (26°47'20"N, 86°42'27"E) in Triyuga municipality, Udayapur. To sell the produce directly to Gaighat market is not possible for individual farmers because of small volume of produce, diffi culties in transportation, requires high transportation costs, and is time consuming. As a result of active participation of farmers' groups, three co-operatives along with three collection centers (one in each study sites) for vegetables has been established in their villages.

Socio-cconomic characteristics of farmers
The socio-economic characteristics of the farmers includes household size, age, gender, schooling years and the average annual income. The majority of the household head age group were within the ranges of 30-39 (32.67%), 40-49 (30.61%), and 50-59 (31.33%) and few were in the age group above 70 (2%). The gender composition of the household head was 78 percent female headed households and 22 percent of male headed. This distortion is due to outmigration of male members for employment.
Household size is of minimum 1 and maximum 23 members with the mean household size of 5.36 (Table 1) which is much larger than the national average of 4.5. The mean age of household head was 40.28 years and the standard deviation was 11.65. The mean average annual income was of NRs. 76,583 and the farmers' mean school years was found to be fi ve years.
Majority (90.78%) of farmers used their own land for farming purposes (Table 2). However, 3.67% have rented in for irrigation, mechanization, value chain development, and export targeting mainly to the commercial farmers.
In this study, climate resilient vegetable practices refers to integrated use of jholmal, compost manure, land preparation techniques, water management and marketing strategy provided by Himalica pilot project through training, regular technical follow-ups, demonstration of technology at farmers' fi elds, formation of farmers' group & co-operative, providing market information and material support for farming. From the farmers' perspective, farmers' objective is to maximize earnings of the family [10]. This concept can be turned into reality only after understanding the value chain as the series of activities required to bring a product through various phases of farmers' production to its market destination. This study focused on farmers' production more profi table assisting them with climate resilient agriculture knowledges, along with the market know-how in vegetable farming value chain. So, this study would ultimately enrich the full-fl edged value chain in vegetable farming as well as in overall agriculture practices.

Study area
The study was conducted in three villages namely Bagah

Sample size and sampling
The household data were obtained from Himalica pilot project implemented by ICIMOD. The project covered 25 farmers groups (Bagah-10, Rauta-9 and Saune-6) with 600 households. A half of the project households i.e. 300 households were selected from the study sites (Bagah-150, Rauta-90 and Saune-60) representing the twenty fi ve farmers groups.
The fi eld survey was conducted from August 2017 to February 2018. Firstly, all 25 farmers' groups were purposively chosen in order to select the sample size. Secondly, list of households were obtained from each group that constituted the sampling frame. The household samples of 50% were obtained from the sampling frame using systematic sampling with random start from each of the twenty fi ve selected farmers' groups. The households selected were interviewed face to face.

Types and sources of data
Semi-structured questionnaire was used for household survey to collect primary data that included the socio-economic

Analysis of value chain from farmgate to market
The agriculture service center initiated by farmers group plays a crucial role in value chain. Farmers sold major portion of their produce to the local market directly (in case of Bagah, local market refers to Gaighat) followed by selling at the farmgate. However, some portion was sold in Gaighat market through farmers' co-operatives, which was started recently during study period in order to systematize the value chain especially for future high production.
Farmers were likely to sell their produce through four selling places i.e. local traders, local market, Gaighat market, and Collection center/co-operative. It was found that 45% of households sold their product to local market (Table 3). About  the awareness of farmers about collection centers for increased production in future shows that produce will be channelized through the collection center.

Role of market structure in vegetable value chain
Collection centers managed by farmers saving groups have the critical connection in vegetable value chains. In general, collection centers are owned and managed by the farmers, who organize the production and coordinate the marketing of their produce to get suitable price. So, the tendency to sell vegetable through co-operative is increasing and will increase in future along with increase in production. Through bonding relations, smallholders acquire information and gain self-confi dence to analyse their own problems and to act collectively [12]. The difference in price between these two markets determine the marketing margin. In this case, the marketing margin ranges from 66% to 100% of the main market retail price and the average price obtained by farmers was found to be Rs.25-30 per kg. Parts of the marketing margin goes to costs of collection, transportation, selling and loss of the products during the process and rest goes to the profi t of the traders.
In second case, farmers sell their produce in local market at an average of Rs. 45, which is similar to the price in the co-operative. In this case, the marketing margin is 33.33% with the main market retail price. But, the local market is too small for farmers to expand their produce. In the third case, the farmers sell their produce through co-operatives at an average of Rs. 44 (allocating Rs.1 for service charge). In this case, the marketing margin is 13.63% with the main market retail price. According to wholesaler and retail traders, their profi t margin is around 20%, such that the average retail price faced by consumers was accounted to be Rs. 60. Therefore, it can be clearly seen that the profi t of farmers increases when they sell their produce to farmers' co-operatives or directly to the consumers market.
Smaller the marketing margin, more effi cient is the marketing channel.

Major challenges in the value chain
The analysis shows the following major value chain challenges faced by the farmers during the production and marketing of vegetables.
At the stage of vegetable production, water unavailability at farmers' fi eld becomes the major challenge. Nearly half of the farmers told that the lack of irrigation water in their fi eld was the major challenge ( Table 4). After that, nearly one fourth revealed pests and diseases are posed as the next major challenge. Another challenge was the poor road access to market, which was mentioned by 17.3% of the farmers. Other challenges included lack of good quality seeds and no technical support in production process reported by 3.6% and 5% farmers respectively. These factors hinder the production level and creating major problems in increasing production level.

Coping strategies for lack of irrigation
The survey showed the following coping strategies were followed by farmers to overcome water challenges.   vegetable fi elds, 14.68% constructed plastic pond, 10.48% used electric motor pump and 4.89% constructed water tank at source to solve their water problem (Table 5). In case of farmers from Bagah, majority of farmers used motor pumps and well water for irrigation purpose. In Rauta and Saune, majority of farmers depended on canal water, pipeline supply water, and plastic pond water to overcome the water challenges.
The following activities were recognized by farmers to increase profi t in the value chain: Two-thirds of the farmers viewed that off-seasonal vegetables can fetch higher price than seasonal one in order to increase their profi t level (Table 6). However, production of off season vegetable needs higher levels of technical support.
Along with seasonal vegetable production, 8.33% viewed that adopting off-seasonal vegetable farming by using new technology (tunnel construction, drip irrigation, greenhouse installation and mulching) would increase their profi t. Finally, along with these activities and improving marketing activities (branding and marketing of organic products, establishing cooperatives, and providing vehicle facilities to access to large markets) would increase the farmers' profi t.

Social, economic and environmental benefi ts of Vegetable Farming
Employment creation: Vegetable farming is a laborintensive process that offers employment in the community particularly for retired persons and women. Vegetable farming would provide the employment for rural unskilled labors and women [13]. person per year [14]. During the study, it was found that almost all of the households consumption of vegetable increased nearly by double after the commercial vegetable farming.
Hence, increased consumption of vegetables increases the intake of nutrients.
Active women participation: Women undertake new roles in the society through providing new skills and such skills help in income generation to add to family income [15].
From gender perspective, women were not only involved in production process but also in decision making in vegetable farming activities.

Conclusions and Recommendations
The climate resilient vegetable production is profi table for farmers and also provide nutrition to the family members. The vegetable farming has become an additional income source for the households and improved the required dietary necessities of the family members after the implementation of climate resilient agriculture project. However, the value chain analysis shows that profi t of the farmers depends on the market type they access, as farmers' revenue increases when they sell their produce either directly to the local market or through farmers' collection center managed by farmers' co-operatives. Farmers The value chain of vegetable farming includes production stage and marketing stage, which indicates that farmers require initial support in terms of knowledge regarding formation of farmers groups and cooperative in order to enhance value chain in vegetable farming. Similarly, providing knowledge on climate resilient agriculture practices for off-season vegetables will encourage the small holder's to commercial farming, which is useful to stabilize and strengthen the vegetable value chain.
Hence, it is evident that climate resilient agriculture practices needs to be implemented from the government level to reach farmers' level with the intention of enhancing sustainable agriculture system in the country.