patterns of population growth in nepal - Institute for Social and ...

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that in the last two decades, agriculture sector in
Nepal has experienced a marked improvement as
all
other indicators except one experienced a steady
increase over a period of time.
Nepal had in 1961-62, a total cultivated area
of 1,685,000 hectares which was around 12 per cent
of the total land area. Over time the cul ti va ted
area has gone up to 2,638,000 in 1981-82 which
amounts to about 18 per cent of the total land area.
This increase reflects an annual growth rate of 2.83
per cent during the period 1961-81.
Cropped area
has also increased from 1,662.000 hectares to
hectares
4,291,000Lwith an annual growth rate of 7.91 per
cent during the same period which is quite high COlllpared
to the rate of increase in cultivated area.
As a resul t of this the cropping intensity has gone
up from 98.6 to 162.65 during the same period. It
is thus evident that about 63 per cent of the total
cultivate~ area is used for cultivation more than
once.
Even more conspicuous was the rise in the
area under high yielding varieties which increased
from meagre 12,500 hectares (0.64 per cent of total
cropped area) 1n 1964-65 to 1,161,500 hectares
(27.06 per cent of total cropped area) in 1981-82