Type
Date
Corporate author
Editor
Illustrator
Producer
Photographer
Contributor
Writer
Translator
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Access Rights
APA citation
Devkota, R., Pant, L. P., Gartaula, H. N., Patel, K., Gauchan, D., Hambly-Odame, H., Thapa, B., & Raizada, M. N. (2020). Responsible agricultural mechanization innovation for the sustainable development of Nepal’s hillside farming system. Sustainability, 12(1), 374. https://doi.org/10.3390/su12010374
ISO citation
Abstract
Description
Agricultural mechanization in developing countries has taken at least two contested innovation pathways—the “incumbent trajectory” that promotes industrial agriculture, and an “alternative pathway” that supports small-scale mechanization for sustainable development of hillside farming systems. Although both pathways can potentially reduce human and animal drudgery, the body of literature that assesses the sustainability impacts of these mechanization pathways in the local ecological, socio-economic, cultural, and historical contexts of hillside farms is either nonexistent or under-theorized. This paper addresses this missing literature by examining the case of Nepal’s first Agricultural Mechanization Promotion Policy 2014 (AMPP) using a conceptual framework of what will be defined as “responsible innovation”. The historical context of this assessment involves the incumbent trajectory of mechanization in the country since the late 1960s that neglected smallholder farms located in the hills and mountains and biased mechanization policy for flat areas only. Findings from this study suggest that the AMPP addressed issues for smallholder production, including gender inequality, exclusion of smallholder farmers, and biophysical challenges associated with hillside farming systems, but it remains unclear whether and how the policy promotes small-scale agricultural mechanization for sustainable development of agriculture in the hills and mountains of Nepal.
Keywords
Citation
Copyright
CIMMYT manages Intellectual Assets as International Public Goods. The user is free to download, print, store and share this work. In case you want to translate or create any other derivative work and share or distribute such translation/derivative work, please contact CIMMYT-Knowledge-Center@cgiar.org indicating the work you want to use and the kind of use you intend; CIMMYT will contact you with the suitable license for that purpose.
Journal
Sustainability
Journal volume
12
Journal issue
1
Article number
374
Place of Publication
Basel (Switzerland)
Publisher
MDPI