Resilience and Transcommunity Knowledge-Sharing in Agroecosystems at the Base of The Himalayas

Disaster events and environmental shocks disproportionately affect rural and poor populations.1 A hotspot for natural disasters with over 80% of the rural population dependent on agriculture and home-produced food1, the Nepali Himalayas are especially vulnerable to shocks. Enhancing resilience and adaptive capacity can improve outcomes post-shock for both human and ecological communities2. Here, resilience can be defined as the capacity to buffer change3 or ‘the ability of social-ecological systems to absorb disturbances while retaining the same basic structure/functions’4. Considerable evidence suggests that diversified agroecosystems and agricultural practices are more resilient to economic and climatic variability and change as compared to monocrop systems that rely heavily on external inputs and market demand.5 Previous research finds that diversified farming systems protect natural resources, maintain or even increase agrobiodiversity, and strengthen farmer resilience to climate variability or economic crises.6

The 2015 earthquakes in Nepal offer a novel opportunity to test hypotheses concerning the impacts of crop diversification, integration of ecosystem services/common resources in food systems, variation of market penetration, and livelihood diversification on resiliency. We posit that adaptation options are manifold and they may occur at multiple levels, ranging from ancient and evolving indigenous knowledge and institutions to adoption of new technologies and livelihood strategies. Extensive fieldwork near the epicenters of the 2015 earthquakes yields data on the difference in resilience between farming systems with regards to food production, agroecological and livelihood practices, and ecosystem service delivery. This research seeks to fill an important knowledge gap through a comparative research-action field project in the context of post-earthquake Nepal (April 2015). We use a mixed-method and participatory approach to understand how indigenous knowledge and rural agroecology practices interact with post-shock community resilience. Household and farm surveys in the Dolakha region are combined with interviews, focus groups and participatory mapping exercises with local residents.

This research is guided by the EcoAgriculture Resilience Framework, developed in collaboration with the World Food Programme, which recognizes four “intricately connected” components of landscape resilience: ecosystem-, agroecosystem-, livelihood- and institutional resilience.7 Through these components we identify within the field site “successes and building blocks, as well as opportunities for adding, expanding, and/or linking activities”8 for improved socio-ecological resilience. We build on previous studies on the impact of Hurricane Mitch on Central American agriculture, and food security as well as research on the 2010 Pakistan floods to increase empirical evidence and understanding of post-disaster rural experiences with impact and recovery. We employ the Socio-Ecological Production Landscape and Seascapes (SEPLS)9 multidimensional analysis toolkit, to facilitate participatory assessment of individual, household and community post-earthquake experiences of impact and recovery from shock, and for intra-community and inter-community knowledge sharing.

Our results may show how diversified socio-ecological systems impact resilience in rural mountain communities where climatic and environmental shocks continue to affect vulnerable populations. Conclusions contribute to national and regional resource management policies and provide opportunity for knowledge sharing across diverse communities impacted by shocks.