Agricultural Mechanisation in Nepal's Hills: Maize Farming in Gulmi's Satyawati Rural Municipality

What is the state of maize mechanisation in Nepal's hills?

In Satyawati Rural Municipality, Gulmi District, mechanisation of maize farming is concentrated almost entirely at land preparation. A survey of 100 maize-farming households found that 69% used power tillers for tillage, but only 13% used any post-harvest machinery. Farmers rated the power tiller the easiest and most efficient implement, yet 61% rated the traditional bullock-drawn wooden plough as the most effective for soil preparation. The main barriers to further adoption were knowledge-based rather than financial: lack of extension advice (66%) and lack of training (44%) far outweighed cost (17%).

The study was published in Tropical Agrobiodiversity 7(2): 83–90 (2026), with Bishal Neupane as first and corresponding author and Sabina Upadhyaya, Sachin Chapagain and Aayushma Chemjong as co-authors. It was conducted as part of BSc Agriculture thesis research at Agriculture and Forestry University (AFU).

Why agricultural mechanisation matters for hill maize

Maize is a staple food for hill households in Nepal and an important raw material for the feed industry. The paper notes, citing MoALD (2023), that Gulmi's district maize yield of 3.04 t/ha is below the national average of 3.17 t/ha. The Prime Minister Agriculture Modernization Project (PMAMP), launched in 2016, designated Gulmi as a maize zone and offers a 50% subsidy on selected machinery, including power tillers, mini tillers, corn shellers and threshers.

What had not been documented was how far those subsidies turn into actual use at ward level in hill municipalities. Terrain, social structure and extension reach in the hills differ sharply from the Terai plains. Male out-migration has also left women doing much of the farm work, which affects who needs training and who receives it.

How the study was designed

• Site: wards 1, 2, 5, 6 and 7 of Satyawati Rural Municipality, Gulmi District, Lumbini Province (elevation about 700–2,100 m), inside the PMAMP maize zone.
• Sample: 100 households by simple random sampling from ward and PMAMP household lists, allocated in proportion to maize households per ward. Slovin's formula (5% margin of error, about 950 households) gave a minimum of 90; 100 were surveyed, and no household refused.
• Instrument: five-section structured questionnaire covering socio-economics, maize production, tillage mechanisation, implement perceptions (ease of use, operational efficiency, agronomic effectiveness) and barriers. It was pre-tested with 10 farmers from Ward 3.
• Fieldwork: face-to-face interviews in Nepali, January to March 2025, averaging about 35 minutes.
• Analysis: descriptive statistics (frequencies, percentages, mean ± SD) in Microsoft Excel 2019, reported following STROBE guidelines for cross-sectional studies.

Who are the farmers?

Women made up 52% of respondents. Mean age was 47.1 ± 11.7 years and mean family size 5.3 ± 2.1. Education was low: 49% had primary education only and 10% were illiterate. Agriculture was the main occupation for 86%. The average landholding was 6.9 ropani (about 0.35 ha) with 5.1 ropani under maize, 87% farmed fragmented parcels, and 37% of households had a member working abroad. Most grew spring-season maize (82%) and local varieties (67%).

Which machines do farmers use?

Respondents could name more than one implement, so tillage shares add to more than 100%. The gap between tractor access (89%) and tractor use (15%) is a key point: the authors attribute it to plot slope, terrace width and fragmentation, and conclude that road access alone does not make a plot suitable for machines.

The perception paradox: power tiller vs bullock plough

Tractors were rated most efficient by 34% of farmers, more than twice their actual use, and mini tillers were rated easiest by 20%. The authors argue that the plough's high effectiveness rating is likely to reflect real experience rather than tradition: on the clay-loam and silty-clay bari soils of the area, bullock ploughing gives deeper soil inversion, whereas power tiller blades mainly cut rotationally. Their recommendation is to test this locally rather than dismiss it, through comparative tillage trials on the same soils and terraces that farmers can see for themselves.

What stops farmers from mechanising further?

Although 87% of farmers had fragmented land, only 3% named fragmentation as a barrier. The authors suggest that farmers have already adapted by choosing compact implements such as power tillers and mini tillers. With more than half the respondents female, they argue that gender-inclusive training is necessary for adoption, not only a matter of equity.

What this means for policy and extension

The study shifts the priority from subsidies alone to subsidies combined with extension. Its specific recommendations are:

1. Mobile mechanisation demonstration units at ward level within the PMAMP Gulmi maize zone.
2. Mechanisation modules in farmer field school curricula, with gender-sensitive scheduling.
3. Cooperative-based custom hiring centres, following the PMAMP model used in the Terai.
4. Locally replicated comparative tillage trials to address perceptions of mechanised implements.

What this means for researchers

The authors call for multivariate work, such as logistic regression or probit models, to estimate how education, land size, cooperative membership, training and remittance income affect adoption, broken down by gender. Plot-level soil and slope data would also help explain which implements suit which terraces. For the wider rice picture, see the companion review of rice mechanisation in Nepal; for another maize study from the same research group, see the fall armyworm survey in Chitwan.

Limitations

• Cross-sectional design, so no causal relationships can be established.
• 100 households in five wards are adequate for municipal-level description but do not represent every ward or ecological subgroup.
• Perceptions are self-reported and may carry social desirability bias.
• No soil type or plot slope data were collected for individual respondents.

How to cite

Neupane, B., Upadhyaya, S., Chapagain, S., & Chemjong, A. (2026). Agricultural mechanization status and adoption constraints in maize farming: Evidence from a hill municipality of Nepal. Tropical Agrobiodiversity, 7(2), 83–90. https://doi.org/10.26480/trab.02.2026.83.90

More of Bishal Neupane's work is on the publications page, and his research interests are summarised on the research fit page. Supervisors and collaborators working on agricultural mechanisation or technology adoption can get in touch through the contact page.