Land Reform
The Development Imperative

By Shobhana Malla

THE phenomenal industrial growth of Japan, Korea and Taiwan can trace its root to the successful land and agrarian reform programmes which these countries pursued after the second world war. Today these countries boast of agricultural gross value added ranging from Rs. 200,000 to 400,000 per hectare compared to about Rs. 20,000 to 30,000 in Nepal today. These countries have proven that the promotion of agricultural productivity by intensifying land usage through small owner cultivators can provide a good base for rapid industrialisation. Also, these countries decided, early in their development game, to address the issue of economic equity to avert social and political problems that would certainly erupt if large income disparities began to stalk the people.

Causes of Poverty

In Nepal the rather delayed response to equity and land productivity issues has hampered both agricultural and industrial growth. Overwhelming majority of the population remains poor, thus unable to purchase goods produced by the industrial sector and make ends meet like proper human beings. The huge increase in population has heightened the pressure on productive resources like land and forests. This has led to the deterioration of these resources through overexploitation and denudation. The dual effect of higher demand from more people and lower resource supply because of depletion has resulted in a worsening poverty scenario in Nepal, particularly in the rural/agricultural sector.

The recent move to reduce the size of the ownership of land in the country is a good gesture by the Government to show that it is planning to do something meaningful for the landless and the absolute poor. This sudden announcement to impose the limit to land size holding has created a lot of confusion since prior homework had not been carried out to forecast the impact of its implementation. However, the primary intention has been to alleviate poverty in the long run. The growing number of the poor and persistence of income inequality in Nepal can be attributed to three structural factors; unequal asset ownership, population growth and the lack of productivity.

To elaborate further several factors appear for the country’s poverty. First there is too much wealth in the hands of few people. Second, 90 per cent of the country’s farmlands have been devoted to crops with low value added, namely rice, wheat and corn. The nature of these three low-valued added crops has underutilised the country’s labor force. Third, Nepal had relied too much on national level mechanisms to push development. All major decisions on the planning and execution of development programmes are made in Kathmandu. Fourth, the Nepalese banking system, which is dominated by commercial banks mostly favors urban borrowers, industrialists and other non-agricultural sectors.

Steps needed for Land Distribution

The recently announced land reform programme can act as the rallying force that could galvanise government and non-government efforts towards poverty alleviation, productivity improvement and people upliftment. It must not be seen merely as a social equity or land distribution programme. It must be conceived as the foundation for building a strong country and must go beyond the mere economic emancipation of landless farmers. Similar land reform programme was implemented 37 years ago, but to what extent the programme was successful in achieving social and economic equity still needs to be assessed meticulously.

If land or agrarian reform is to be implemented effectively in Nepal, we have to learn a lot from East Asian experiences. In Japan, Taiwan and Korea a pattern evolved which is worth adapting to the local situation. Likewise, learning from these countries Nepal will also need to adopt the following for effective and successful execution of the programme. First and foremost, there has to be relative speed and wide coverage of land reform implementation. Within a span of five years of land reform programme in these countries 80 per cent of farm households owned their own land in these countries.

Second, land distribution has to be buttressed by agricultural support services like credit, market, facilities, technical extension and infrastructures. Otherwise desired impact cannot be achieved only by land distribution.

Third, the most important component of agrarian or land reform has to be area based cooperatives. which will be indispensable mechanism for the delivery of support services in bringing about productivity. Committees operating at the village level are to be formed to facilitate implementation.

Fourth, productivity through irrigation, research, technology dissemination and agricultural extension must be promoted.

Fifth, farmers will have to shift to higher value after attaining surplus status in staple products like rice and wheat.

The Number of Beneficiaries

In a developing country like ours the assumption today is that the larger the land holding the lesser the productivity. This may not be true in our case. Even today 70 per cent of the landholdings are less than 1 ha, but the productivity and the output still remains more or less the same for the large and small farm holdings. Now the question arises on how many landless or the absolute poor will benefit from the imposition of the recently announced land ceiling of 11 bigas in the Tarai, 30 ropanies in Kathmandu Valley and 75 ropanies in the hills and mountains. How the excess land will be acquired is still to be addressed. As things stand today, the total cultivated land in the country is 2.6 million hectares. 70 per cent of land holdings and 30 per cent of the cultivated area falls below 1 ha. Similarly out of 2.7 million land holdings less than one per cent comprise of land size more than 11 bigas. In other words the total cultivated area with land size more than 11 bigas in less than 15 per cent. So the land available for acquisition or distribution is some two hundred fifty thousand bigas. With the assumption that each beneficiary family gets half a biga to eke out a living, the total population benefited is around 1.5 million. With this scenario in background only a fraction of the landless section of the society is going to benefit. What will happen to the rest? Possibly more frustration and chaos among the landless who have great expectations of obtaining some land from the present announcement of the land ceiling.

Many feel that the decision to impose this land ceiling on private property was not a timely pursuit since adequate homework has not been exercised. There has been a lot of resentment among the landowners, particularly in the Tarai because of many technical problems like not possessing citizen certificates and others. The policy of this programme could have been to first experiment land distribution in selected areas, and demonstrate the ability to methodologically transfer land from landlords to landless, tenants and agricultural workers. As a matter of fact it needs success stories to capture the imagination of the farming communities. Besides that the success areas chosen for demonstration should firstly be areas where the land for distribution is prime farm land not marginal, idle or unproductive secondly the potential for farmer success is high due to the presence of economic and social support systems, thirdly the landless farmer discontent is high and a very large number of beneficiaries can be involved.

As many imagine, poverty alleviation cannot be solely achieved by land distribution to the landless and the poor. There are other areas where the policy makers and executors of the programmes must concentrate on. If this land reform or agrarian reform progarmme, whichever you prefer to call, is to be made meaningful, the primary pre-requisite is to integrate it with other income generation and social activities. Besides that one has to make sure that the genuine ones only get and is not misused like in the past with affluent ones even taking advantage. The responsibility of executing this programme must fall upon on an entity comprising of sincere, honest and innovative persons from the private and government sector so that it is executed on an unbiased and fair manner.

Tourism Sector Hopes Revival

By Mohan K.C.

AFTER the glut the tourism sector faced in the past year, there are better prospects for a recovery in the season that has just started. As is the problem with the tourism sector, the seasonality factor has always played a crucial role. The jinx continues in the other seasons besides the autumn and the spring.

The negative growth that was witnessed in 2000 was a blow to this sector which has been sustaining the economy in a big manner. Though the bandhs and a sort of political instability that was evident had a part in hitting below the belt to this vital sector.

At least for the coming season there are prospects that the situation will improve. This evaluation is based on the projections made by the bookings that the hotel entrepreneurs and tour operators claim to have received though block bookings may not actually reflect the actual situation in the days to come. The bookings are made but there is no guarantee that the visitors as such will arrive. This is a system that rooms are booked without actually knowing the number of tourists who will really make it. Such bookings as tour operators say are based on the number of inquiries that they receive from tour operators in the tourist generating markets. So it is but a fair estimate of how many tourists may arrive plus or minus a few points.

The ray of hope has arisen as the travel agencies have received bookings that are in line with the expectations. It is said that the next four months will see a turn about the gloomy state of tourist arrivals. In fact, the past few months have not been encouraging as far as the arrivals are concerned. The incidents in the beginning of June were responsible for the negative publicity of the country as a tourist destination. Earlier than that, the confrontation between the hoteliers and the hotel workers’ unions also sent the wrong message. With both sides not willing to come for a compromise saw the hotels closing doors for almost a day about six months back. This led to the cancellation of many a bookings and for the past three months at least the valley hotels saw a negligible number of rooms occupied. This indicated that the hospitality industry was severely affected leading to great loss to the nation.

The country saw a negative growth of tourist arrivals by almost 11 per cent. If the figures for the first seven months of 2001 are compared to the similar period in 2000, it is found that it is lower by almost 4 per cent. This suggests that not everything is going well with the tourism industry. The amount of investment is high in this sector and the returns have been minimal. A few months back a question was raised whether this sector could sustain itself. This was based on the actual number of tourist arrivals together with the cancellation of booking made previously. Optimism has once again come to the service with those associated with the industry saying that the next four months will mean good business. This comes as good news when it comes to sustaining the tourism industry as well as earning foreign exchange that is so necessary for the development of the country.

At a moment when the tourism industry is set to revive itself after all the ups and downs in the nation, the national flag carrier, Royal Nepal Airlines Corporation (RNAC) has cut down its flights to three destinations namely London, Paris and Frankfurt in Europe. The reason for this is the lack of aircraft. Though it has announced the resumption of its flight to Bangalore (twice a week), this is not enough to cater to the demand for air seats.

Despite a promising season to come, the flights are still not enough to meet the demands of those from the European market. The foreign airlines may take the cue but that will still not be enough. Herein it is worthwhile remembering that any prospective tourist wanting to come to Nepal will obviously opt for the national airlines to get the feel of the country they are visiting right from the moment they take the flight.

The tourists from Europe will miss this experience. So much has been said but there still seems to be no attempt on the part of the concerned to go for a new
aircraft. The experience of leased jet aircraft was quite bitter. The corruption and financial irregularities are common knowledge to all. So the leased aircraft of Lauda Air and china South West Airlines have gone back but there has been no initiative to spruce RNAC. This will hit the tourism industry. The bookings may be there but meeting the demand for air seats during the ‘peak season’ will not be possible. The only way, at present, could be to charter flights from the main tourist originating countries. But this is easier said than done.

It is high time that seriousness was taken in this regard considering tourism to be a most vital industry that has contributed much to the national economy and will continue to do so. Long term pragmatic policies are the need of the hour. And more aircraft and the maintenance of law and order in the country besides a tackling a host of other problems merits more than average attention.

A Pleasant Home Stay

By Amar Mainali

CAN people be so much drawn to each other even when the meeting is short? It all depends on the level of affection. When there is a reason to like each other’s culture and outlook towards life, even short meetings culminate into a relation so warm and unbreakable.

The home stay for the South Asian participants visiting Japan for the Youth Forum was organized for two nights. As usual the excitement among the participants was intense. Everybody seemed to be engrossed in contemplating how the family they looked forward to spend the two nights with would turn out to be.

The home stay was arranged in Kyoto, which is regarded as the cultural and religious center of Japan and is the seventh largest city with a population of 1.5 million people. It boasts of having nearly fifteen hundred temples, three hundred shrines and many eye-catching gardens. Nearly forty million tourists from home and abroad visit Kyoto every year.

Kyoto remained the capital of Japan for nearly one thousand years. It still has houses that speak of the past history. Many old houses can be seen in the city because Kyoto was not affected by the air raids in the Second World War. The people in Kyoto made sure that their doors were small in the olden days. This was because they had to pay tax to the government depending on the size of their door.

The Royal Righa hotel in Kyoto was the venue set for the meeting between the host families and the participants. The astonishing part was that the level of excitement was at its peak even among the Japanese families who had come to pick their guests up.

After getting over the formalities, the South Asian participants started off with their host families to have two days of unique and gratifying experience. Some of the host families could not make it, as they did not find time out from their work. But they had sent somebody to receive their guests

My Nepali colleague and I too were escorted to a nearby town-Kameako and a swift train ride for about half an hour got us to the place where our host family was waiting eagerly.

Two ladies walked towards us and spelt out "Joshi" san and "Mainali" san. One of them was the daughter of the Namikawa family where we were supposed to be staying and the other was her friend.

After a fifteen minutes ride we got to the house. Mrs. Namikawa was already kneeling down at the entrance welcoming us warmly in the traditional Japanese style. Her first gesture made us euphoric and homely.

Mr. Namikawa was already waiting for us in the dinning hall. He was equally restless to see both of us and feel the Nepali touch. After exchanging gifts we started with the dinner, which was quite lavish.

Yuka, the daughter of the Namikawa family made things easier for us since she was taking English classes and could communicate reasonably well in English. She worked as an interpreter and did her job pretty well.

Walking around somebody’s house who is unknown to you at times makes you feel quite nervous. But we two Nepalese never had to come across such a situation. The air was so friendly we forgot that we were in Japan and for sometime felt as if we were in our own home.

The next day waited with many surprises. Early in the morning, we took a three hour-long ride to a Buddhist temple and to Aamano Hashidate, one of the widely talked about tourist spots in Japan.

The day passed off very smoothly. The ride to the top of the hill in the cable car to see the grandeur of Aamano Hashidate was a lifetime experience. The togetherness with the Namikawa family was so touching and fascinating that the very thought of departing gave you a feeling of unknown and unseen melancholy.

As the saying goes departure is sweet sorrow, the Namikawa family drove us to the Royal Righa hotel where all the other host families and the participants had gathered for a party.

The whole hall was bustling with people sharing their rich experiences with the Japanese host families. Later the moment of departure really brought a feeling of grief. Everybody was nevertheless prepared to take it saying to oneself that all good things must come to an end.