| Username |
Post |
| sally |
Posted
on 24-Aug-01 12:36 PM
Does anyone know how many hectares are in a bigha and a ropani, and how that all translates into acres? I've been told the answer before, but I never seem to remember, and I'd like to know it for sure.
I'm trying to contextualize the Nepali Times article on land regulations.
("His 1999 study on land tenure shows only 8,000 households held over 10 hectares of land in 1991, down from over 14,000 households in 1981. At that rate of fragmentation due to inheritance and other reasons, the number of households today with more than 10 hectares may be no more than 3,600.")
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| bigyan |
Posted
on 24-Aug-01 01:31 PM
hi,
i pretty sure this is the conversion:
1 bigha = 0.67 hectare
1 ropani = 0.50 hectare.
kancha's fren
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| bigyan |
Posted
on 24-Aug-01 01:32 PM
hi,
sorry
1 ropani = 0.05 hectare.
bigyan
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| sparsha |
Posted
on 24-Aug-01 01:39 PM
> i pretty sure this is the conversion:
> 1 bigha = 0.67 hectare
> 1 ropani = 0.50 hectare.
I don't know the conversion. However, if 1 bigha=0.67 hectares (i.e. 0.67 hectare=1 bigha) then how can 1 ropani equal 0.50 hectare (i.e. 0.50 hectare = 1 ropani)?
1 bigha equals 20 kattha or 13 ropanis.
so,
if 0.67 hectares equals 1 bigha, then
0.50 hectares cannot be equal to 1 ropani.
Before I conclude, I must admit I am not good at math, though.
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| sparsha |
Posted
on 24-Aug-01 01:42 PM
When I started my comment Bigyan's correction was not posted.
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| sally |
Posted
on 24-Aug-01 03:04 PM
Thanks!
That means that 14.9 bighas is taken as a threshold of some kind. Is there a land-reform bill that would make that some kind of benchmark? Or is that just a convenient figure to use because it's a nice rounded one (in hectares, anyway)?
Looking up "hectare" in the dictionary, I find that a hectare equals 2.471 acres. So in U.S. terms, the article in Nepali Times translates as: "the number of households with over 24.7 acres may be no more than 3,600."
In the U.S., the phrase "40 acres and a mule" is one I've taken to mean a small farm. It comes from a promise given to freed slaves after the Civil War. My interpretation of it as a small farm may be wrong; it may actually refer to unfulfilled promises. Perhaps it was, at one point, actually seen as a large farm and this was some kind of a great, never-never land promise. (Evidently freed slaves really got closer to 5 acres, about 4 bighas).
At any rate, I'm surprised that people can scratch out a living with such small plots of land in Nepal. This is not the first time I've heard these figures. I think they just don't sink in because they sound so small to me. But I might be revealing my lack of agricultural roots.
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| Biswo |
Posted
on 24-Aug-01 06:56 PM
Dear Sally:
It is 25 Bighas in Terai. But see, Asia is a populated continent. In India, or China,
you can find people living with less land.Being both populated and dependent
on land means less land per person.
The land reform , being touted now, is considered more productive option,
because it would distribute land among people, and may increase labour per
unit of land, which can result in better productivity. Rightnow, a lot of lands are
being controlled by the families who may not need them, or who wouldn't care
what they get from those lands.
In USA, 25 bighas is nothing, and in a lot of states, it costs less than US$50,000
to buy that much of lands. In Nepal, 25 bighas in a district like Chitwan means
millions of dollars.(1 bigha near EastWest highway cost ,in average, 50 lakhs two
years ago near Tandi..and it wais more expensive in Bharatpur & Narayanghat).
Sounds improbable, but is true.
Wish you good luck in your understanding of Nepal's land reform.
------
When I first went to Alabama, I was amazed by vast lands left uncultivated
or uninhabitated, and I once asked an acquaintee the price. About $1000 per
acre, he said. "Huh.." I was surprised. Like the Irish protagonist of Far and Away,
I was raised in the environment where land was considered an ultimate asset.
I occasionally wished I could settle down there, and buy a lot of lands, and ask
friends from my village to visit me, so that like a jamindaar, I could show them my
lands and tell:" See, all you can see from here is my land.."
Land is really cheap here.
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| Gandhi |
Posted
on 24-Aug-01 07:17 PM
To Sally:
I appreciate your concerns to Nepal's agricultural production and land productivity. I will try to make clear about how average Nepali live by their land. Since you have tried to compare US and Nepal to conceptualize the things, I will try to do either. However, my knowledge about US Agriculture is also limited.
Roughly less than 5% of farmers feed the total US population and also export soybean, peanuts and some other commodities. That obviously requires farms are large, mechanized and have a higher labor productivity. Thus "40 acres and a mule" is very small farm unit in US. Since US has a high resource endowments, in terms of capital, natural resources and human capital, it has opportunity of investing in other areas and employing people. All these things make farming a specialized business with higher productivity where small farms won't get the economy of scale and would suffer loss under competition.
Now let's go to Nepal. We have limited opportunity for employment due to small number of industries and everything runing at miniature scale. Where do these skilled/unskilled underemployed labor force go? They are absorved by agricultural sector under disguised unemployment and above 80% of economically active population are directly or indirectly involved in agriculture. This has been running for several decades, rather say centuries, farmers have practised subsistence farming. A single farm household is producer, distributor and consumer. It is our tradition to keep one or two buffaloes/cows for milk, few goats/sheep/pigs/poultry for meat, a patch of land for producing grains and a piece of homestead kitchen garden to grow vegetables. People are happy to be engaged that way as there is no other alternative. Otherwise how can you expect a laborer to work whole day on your field hoeing your corn for a buck or less? (Average laborer gets Rs. 60 - 80 per day which is roughly 85c - $1.05)
Still your question is not answered. How do a family lives by operating a farm of 24 acre? To understand this, you need to convert things in Nepali currency and see from the perspective of Nepali living style. Let me give you a simple example with calculations.
If I am given 4 hectare (roughly 6 bigha or 10 acres) ACRES of irrigated land, I can grow 15 tons paddy in one season and rougly equal amount of maize in another season. Suppose I have a family of six members. I will need only 3 tons of paddy and 2 tons of maize for my family. Thus I can sell roughly 12 tons of rice and 13 tons of maize. I will get roughly NRs. 90000 by selling paddy and NRs. 100,000 by selling maize. A gross income of 190,000. I will have to pay for the seeds, chemicals, labor, government taxes on land and..... which comes to be about 60,000 for the whole operation. A net profit of 130,000 per year. If you grow commercial vegetables, you can count the profit 2 folds. This makes me a rich man in Nepal now. I used to get less than this amount and I was happily supporting my six member family solely on my income as an Assistant Professor.
I could support the education of my children for about 50,000 (This is a medium-high charging English Medium School) and other household expenses as 50,000 annually. Yet, I can ride a bike to work If I can engaged in any office works. That makes my living of a high standard.
These are some examples how the average farms in Nepal operate and sustain that is almost impossible in a US county. There are many issues of Nepalese Agriculture and Land Reforms. I am confined only to answer your particular concern. I will like to have comments from other Nepali friends about this. Hopefully other people can give more recent developments in Agriculture.
Gandhi
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| GP |
Posted
on 26-Aug-01 08:54 AM
1 hect. = 100m x 100m square plot = 10000sq m.
1 ropani = 74 feet x 74 foot square plot
1 Bigha = 13ropani
1 foot = 12 x 2.54 cm = 0.305 meter
1 sq m. nearly equals 10 sq. foot, cor. 1 sq. =0.1 sq. m
1 ropani nearly equals 540sq. m nearly equals 0.05 hect.
so , 1 hect = 1/0.05 ropanis
1 hect. nearly equals 20 ropanis.
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| nepalbaje |
Posted
on 27-Aug-01 01:08 PM
It is so easy and convenient for Mr Deuba to put a ceiling on personal land ownership - a sort of quick fix to a larger problem! What about those who own hundreds of bighas under business registration? What about those people that own few businessess - shouldn't there be a cap on it too and share the rest with have-nots? What about politicians, bureaucrats, and middlemen - don't they include kickbacks and 10-15% commissions on every bid awarded as contracts? Shouldn't they share these with the have-nots.
There are a lot of people spending the nights on benches outside the emergency ward of Bir Hospital - shouldn't they get to sleep in the Prime Minister's quarter, afterall, that belongs to the people of Nepal?
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