Is land enough without healthy soil?

Recently, during an interaction program held in Tokha municipality, the mayor, Prakash Adhikari, stated that he was forced to categorize all the land in his municipality as residential and industrial. He mentioned that farmers protested at the municipal office against this decision. “There won’t be any agricultural land left once this land categorization is implemented,” he said. Ironically, during his speech, a large portion of green, rice-planted fields could be seen in the background.

His statement is not unique. Last year, my colleague and I visited four municipalities from eastern to western Nepal. Most of the local representatives we spoke with shared the same opinion. The ward chair of Kalika municipality mentioned that his municipality no longer has agricultural land, as all the area in his wards has been categorized as residential. However, government statistics show that 90.6 percent of the area in the municipality is still used for agricultural purposes.

Undoubtedly, land is a significant economic and productive asset in an agrarian country like Nepal. Historian and archivist Mahesh Chandra Regmi defines land as a representation of the principal form of wealth, the principal symbol of social status, and the principal form of economic and political power. Back then, land ownership meant control over a vital factor of production. Even after five decades, these symbols of land and having ownership of land remain largely the same, although its priority has shifted from production to residential use.

A shifting value 

The Land Use Regulation issued in 2022, three years after the endorsement of the Land Use Act of 2019, categorized land into 10 different types. Based on topography, efficiency, land utility, current use and necessity, land is now classified as agricultural, residential, commercial, industrial, mining and mineral areas, forests, public use, cultural-archeological sites, and others. This new categorization clearly reflects a shift in land priorities from production to a wider range of uses. 

Previously, land was categorized based on the physical properties of the soil, its water retention capacity, irrigation availability, and estimated productivity per unit area. Land with high productivity, good fertility and proper irrigation had the highest value, and efforts were made to maximize land fertility. Now, residential land with road access holds the highest value in both urban and rural areas. As a result, people have pressured the government for road access to their land, leading to haphazard road construction. 

Misdirected basis

With the jurisdiction of land categorization, local bodies have started to classify land as either agricultural or non-agricultural. Most local bodies use road access as a basis for this categorization. Roads are developed as a means of advancing infrastructure, so fertile valleys are often surrounded by roads. Using road access as the basis for land categorization results in categorizing all fertile land as residential, which leads to increased land fragmentation. In Belaka municipality, Udayapur, there is a large fertile area on the banks of Triyuga and Saptakoshi Rivers. Roads are constructed parallel at a distance of less than 100 meters in those fertile raised riverbeds. Both sides of the road within 100 meters are categorized as residential land. As a result of this new categorization, the fertile riverbed has been converted into residential land. A similar situation can be observed throughout Nepal. Instead of examining physical properties, soil fertility, and infrastructure feasibility, using roads as the basis for land categorization increases the risk of diminishing agricultural land.

Policy discrimination

Nepal has 3m hectares of cultivable land, which covers 28 percent of the land area. However, one-third of this cultivable land is now barren, and this trend is increasing. The Land Use Act 2019 was endorsed for the proper use and effective management of land through classification. Political leaders and the concerned ministry have also stated that this act is meant to conserve agricultural land, but the opposite has happened. Some provisions, such as penalties for leaving agricultural land barren and the requirement of approval for buying and selling agricultural land, create fear among farmers about categorizing their land as agricultural. 

The minimum land valuation set by the ministry is based on road access and road type. The government itself discriminates against agricultural land during valuation. Banking loans are also provided based on road access. People are concerned about the low valuation and the difficulty of obtaining loans using agricultural land as collateral. As a result, they pressure the government to categorize their land as residential.

What’s going on?

Land is a very sensitive matter for all of us. It is deeply connected with identity and patriotism, making it a major concern during every political change. Political parties always put land management and ownership distribution at the top of their agendas during elections. People are constantly concerned about land, land ownership and tenure. However, what is actually happening to the land itself is rarely a concern for politicians, the government, or individuals.

With shifting priorities regarding land, soil is suffering harm and becoming lifeless. For short-term economic benefits, land is fragmented into small pieces. There are 6.6m Nepali households owning 11m plots of land, and the size of these plots is also decreasing. All tiers of government are encouraging land fragmentation for revenue generation. Some local governments even put pressure on the ministry, along with land brokers, when the government halted land allotment for categorization. Governments are also building roads haphazardly, ignoring the environmental damage.

Haphazard use of insecticides and pesticides is rife. Last year, more than 2,200 tons of insecticides, pesticides and fungicides were applied to the land, along with 0.4m tons of chemical fertilizers. As a result, the organic matter content in the soil is decreasing, and the land is becoming more acidic, leading to an uncountable loss of soil microbes, beneficial insects and nematodes. At a glance, the true production value of the land was overlooked in favor of contemporary monetary gain, with healthy soil paying the price.

Healthy soil matters

Only 7.5 percent of the Earth’s land is used for agriculture, and it is very fragile. Ninety-five percent of the world's food is produced from fertile, healthy topsoil. Living topsoil is a rich ecosystem with diverse life forms. It is estimated that less than half a hectare of soil (i.e., one acre) may contain 900 pounds of earthworms, 2,400 pounds of fungi, 1,500 pounds of bacteria, 133 pounds of protozoa and 890 pounds of arthropods and algae. However, this source of all life is under threat.

As a mountainous country, Nepal will face a higher threat than others. On one hand, 83 percent of Nepal’s land is covered by mountains and hills, with half of this area already suffering from erosion. On the other hand, 13.6 percent of Nepal’s total population is in a state of severe food insecurity. Additionally, in the fiscal year 2022-23, Nepal imported agricultural goods worth 300bn, highlighting the significant danger of food scarcity the country may face.

Moreover, the ongoing crises due to climate change and regional conflicts worldwide are also unavoidable. This situation underscores the need to conserve our healthy soil on our own land. We need to change our perspective on land. The most fundamental use of land is for production. We have diverse soil types as well as rich agro-biodiversity. The skyrocketing contemporary monetary value of land only leads to the destruction of soil. The Covid-19 pandemic sent a strong message: Money can’t be eaten. There are more crises yet to come, so we must prepare ourselves and recognize that land alone is not enough without fertile soil.

The author is an agroecology researcher at ForestAction Nepal