PhD defense: Jeetendra Aryal: Caste, land tenure and resource management in Nepal

Ragnar A. Øygard

Friday, March 25th Jeetendra Aryal will defend his PhD thesis "Caste Discrimination, Land Tenure, and Natural Resource Management in Nepal" and give a trial lecture over the assigned topic: "Could land policy reforms (including land reforms) mitigate political instability and social inequity in Nepal?"

Jeetendra Aryal Photo: J Aryal

The trial lecture and defense is open to all. It will be held Friday March 25th in auditorium T401, Tower Building, UMB.

1215: Trial lecture: "Could land policy reforms (including land reforms) mitigate political instability and social inequity in Nepal?"

Ca. 1315: Jeetendra Aryal will present and defend his thesis: "Caste Discrimination, Land Tenure, and Natural Resource Management in Nepal"

More on the defense

The PhD-dissertation investigated how caste discrimination is related to land endowment distribution, participation in land and livestock rental markets, participation in labor markets, land productivity, and land-related investment by farm households in rural Nepal. For the analysis, all households under study were classified into two broad groups: low-caste (Dalits or former untouchables under Hindu caste hierarchy) and high-caste (all others except Dalits). This was essential because Dalits were traditionally not allowed to own land and were discriminated against in the use of public resources and in access to regular off-farm employment.

The study shows that there are still wide gaps between low-caste and high-caste households in terms of income, land holding, education, and opportunities. Besides this, farm households in rural Nepal face multiple market imperfections. Therefore, how efficiently a household uses its land and other natural resources depend on the resources that a household possesses.

The major findings of the study are: i) Low-caste households have higher land productivity as compared to high-caste households. ii) For low-caste tenants, there is no significant difference in land productivity on their owned land and sharecropped land. iii) Households that rent in both land and livestock are mostly low-caste households. iv) Small farms mostly operated by low-caste households are found to be more productive than larger farms mostly operated by high-caste households. The analysis revealed that inefficiency of land tenancy transactions and caste discrimination are the major causes of this inverse relationship between farm size and productivity. v) Low-caste households are more likely to use manure as compared to high-caste households, while they use less amount of fertilizer and vi) Better access to off-farm employment lowers the likelihood that households invest in land conservation.

The major lessons are: i) Policies for improving agricultural productivity and enhancing sustainable land use need to focus on the unequal distribution of resources as well as unequal market access and discrimination that may take many forms and have multiple impacts; ii) Policies for improving agricultural productivity should also focus on the complementarities between factors of production such as land and livestock. iii) A peaceful way to redistribute land from less efficient to more efficient farmers may be feasible by imposing a progressive land tax, introducing a land bank to facilitate that low-caste households may borrow to buy land. iv) The allocative efficiency of the land rental market may be improved by the removal of land-to-the-tiller policy as it has unintended effects such as increased tenure insecurity of landlords, which in turn reduces the access to land to the poor households and leads to more inefficient land use. Market assisted land reforms may improve both equity and efficiency.

Updated: 14.03.11
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