The Nepal Crop Type Survey 2022-2023 aims to comprehensively assess and categorize the diverse range of crops cultivated across various regions of Nepal. This survey endeavors to capture the agricultural landscape, identifying predominant crop types, their distribution, and cultivation practices. Objectives of this survey were i) to identify diverse range of crops cultivated across various regions for understanding agricultural diversity within Nepal, ii) to map the crop types by using survey data collected on the ground in combination with high-resolution satellite images (ESRI World Imagery, Venµs and Sentinel-2), and iii) to create a dataset for the winter crops covering most of the Terai region of Nepal.
Sustainable intensification of agriculture (SIA) is promoted by a number of Research-for-Development (R4D) programs and institutions to improve yields, rural incomes, and food security while decreasing or at least maintaining the current expansion of agricultural land and other adverse environmental impacts. One of the major SIA programs was the Cereal System Initiative for South Asia (CSISA), which was established in 2009 with the goal of benefiting more than 8 million farmers by the end of 2020 (https://csisa.org/). After the initial phase, the project shifted its regional focus, toward the eastern Indo-Gangetic Plains. The region is characterized by small farm sizes, low incomes, and comparatively low levels of agricultural mechanization, irrigation, and productivity. The project partners with the national universities, State Departments of Agriculture, national-level initiatives, livelihoods programs, state agricultural universities, NGOs, and private sector entities such as agricultural machinery manufacturers, dealers, and local service providers. The current census among rural households was conducted in 2020, as part of CSISA Nepal. The main research question while starting this farmer census was to estimate the farm-level reach and adoption of CSISA-interventions in Nepal. We aimed to show how inclusive these technologies are, and whether there is a need for social targeting. The study was conducted in 9 districts of Nepal Terai region - Banke, Bardiya, Dang, Kailali, Kanchanpur, Kapilvastu, Nawalpur, Parasi, and Rupendehi. These are the districts where CSISA project has been active in the last decade, and they are major cereal producers in the country. Fifty villages were selected in total – 40 were selected randomly, and 10 from the list of villages where CSISA has been active. In all the 50 villages, village census was conducted in which farmer information (name, phone number, etc.) alongside technology adoption details were collected. During the two-month period (2020), about 38,000 rural households were covered as part of the census.
The data comes from a survey designed to understand the scope of LLL services in four districts of Mid- and Far-western developmental regions of Nepal Terai that are part of the IGB and have the potential to scale-up LLL. Samples were collected from the districts Banke, Bardiya, Kailali and Kanchanpur. The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center, Nepal, led the data collection in 2015. From each district, sub-districts (Village Developmental Committees, or VDCs) were purposively selected from Cereal Systems Initiatives for South Asia (CSISA) project (https://csisa.org/) working areas. The project was operational in 10 VDCs. The sampling strategy consisted of 50 percent of samples randomly selected from the list within CSISA project area and 50 percent of samples randomly selected beyond the CSISA project areas from the same VDCs. From each VDC, 40 sample households were selected randomly, resulting in an overall sample of 400 households (40 households from 10 sub-districts of four districts). An additional six samples were collected from one of the districts due to a higher proportion of rice-wheat systems in that district, bringing the overall sample size to 406.
The objective of this survey was to identify the major wheat productivity and profitability drivers in Nepal Terai. Nepal Terai is considered as the part of Indo-Gangetic Basin and its the major cereal production domain in Nepal. In year 2016, immediately following the wheat harvest, this survey was conducted. A total of 10 districts were purposively selected for the survey based on the highest wheat acreage. In each district, a total of five sub-districts were further selected purposively based on the highest wheat acreage. In each sub-districts (or village development committees: VDCs) a total of 10 wheat producing farms were selected randomly from the farmers name list provided by the village level administrative authorities. The overall sampling frame consists of 10 samples from each VDC × 5 sub-districts (VDCs) in each district × 10 districts in Nepal Terai = 500 samples. Moreover, in order to check the farmers self reported yield, 50% farmers largest plots were selected for the crop cuts and the crop cuts data are also available with this dataset. These crop cuts were conducted prior to the survey – during the time when farmers harvest their wheat crop. Farmers may have multiple plots and asking the data from each plot may reduce the data quality. Therefore, to increase the precision and collect the quality data, farmers inputs (e.g., seed, fertilizer, weed management practices, varieties, sowing time, harvesting time, and other crop management practices), and outputs were asked only for largest plot. Data were collected through a direct farm visit and paper-based survey was deployed. The details of the questions asked, codebook, their description, meta-data, and data can be found in this dataset.
The survey was conducted in 2015 immediately after lentil harvest in six western Nepal districts: Surkhet, Dadeldhura (mid and far west hills) and Banke, Bardiya, Kailali, Kanchanpur from terai. These six districts were selected purposively for the survey and sub districts selection was based on lentil acreage. 600 samples were selected randomly.
