Tunnel Farming as an Adaptation Tool Against Climate Change Effect Among Smallholder Farmers in Nepal

The technology based production practices could be effective adaptation strategies to tackle with the climate change impacts and improve smallholder farmers’ livelihoods in low-income countries like Nepal. For the last few years, smallholder farmers in Nepal have increasingly adopted tunnel house technology owing to government and extensive promotion of developing organisations. However, only little is known about whether adopting this technology has effectively helped farmers adapt to climate adversaries. We took Kathmandu Valley as a case study and collected data from 60 tunnel technology adopting and 82 non-adopting households. The descriptive analysis indicates that tunnel technology significantly increases crop productivity and income, helping farmers to adapt to several climate change impacts induced by extreme rainfall and temperature. Notably, it protects crops from being damaged by heavy rainfall and occasional hailstorm during the monsoon season. Likewise, in the summer season, it provides shade to the extreme sunlight and prevents excessive evaporation. On the contrary, it protects crops from fog and freezing temperature during the winter season. Thus, tunnel technology can be considered as an effective adaptation tool that delivers sustainable livelihood for smallholder farmers in Nepal and countries with similar contexts.