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Socio-economic determinants of growing trees on farms in the middle hills of Nepal

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Abstract

On-farm tree growing is potentially important for livelihood strategies and forest conservation, and varies greatly according to local contexts. A detailed knowledge base is therefore needed, requiring, inter alia, the documentation of factors associated with growing trees on farms. The present study surveyed 304 randomly sampled households in ten community forestry user groups in Nepal, eliciting data on demographics, income and consumption of tree products. All trees on households’ farm land were registered by species. Farmers had on average 65 trees per hectare and a total of 92 species were found. The Shannon–Wiener index was 2.46 and Simpson’s Dominance index was 0.15. Trees on farmland contributed on average 43 % of households’ firewood and fodder consumption. Apparent determinants of tree growing were identified through OLS regression; they included size of land and livestock holdings, education and firewood consumption, while income, ethnicity and sex of household head were not significant. Households’ network and distance between household dwellings and the forest were negatively related with on-farm tree growing. Findings indicate that community forestry practices work to the detriment of the poorest households.

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Acknowledgments

We are thankful to the respondents of all the studied community forests and executive committee members of these. Without their constant support, this study would not have been possible. We are also thankful to Mr Mukti Ram Subedi for his commitment and hard work during data collection; our sincere thanks go to Mr Rabindra Maharjan for his assistance in field work and in producing maps. Thanks are due to Mr Ganesh Jha, Mr Mohan Shrestha, and to all the officials at all levels who rendered support during data collection. Funding was provided The Danish Foreign Ministry (10-15LIFE).

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  1. Department of Food and Resource Economics, University of Copenhagen, Frederiksberg, Denmark

    B. N. Oli, T. Treue & H. O. Larsen

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  1. B. N. Oli
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  2. T. Treue
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  3. H. O. Larsen
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Correspondence to H. O. Larsen.

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Oli, B.N., Treue, T. & Larsen, H.O. Socio-economic determinants of growing trees on farms in the middle hills of Nepal. Agroforest Syst 89, 765–777 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10457-015-9810-1

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