Spring Rice Sowing Time and Variety Selection in Nepal: What Drives Farmers' Decisions in Rautahat

What decides when and what spring rice farmers plant in Rautahat?

Spring rice (Chaite dhan) farmers in Rautahat district, Nepal, base their sowing time and variety choice on a mix of agro-climatic, resource and market factors: temperature, irrigation, marketability, seed price, disease resistance and knowledge of new technology. A survey of 91 growers found that irrigation and seed availability were both significantly linked to whether farmers chose early- or late-maturing varieties, and that sowing time significantly affected production cost and productivity but not family income. Drought risk was the most serious sowing-time challenge, and high input cost the most widely reported constraint overall (75.8% of respondents).

The study was published in Tropical Agrobiodiversity 7(2): 113–120 (2026). Pragya Bhurtel is first author; Bishal Neupane is second and corresponding author; Binita Pandey and Sugam Paudel are co-authors.

Why spring rice matters in Nepal's Terai

Rice is Nepal's main cereal crop. The paper notes, citing the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock Development (MoALD, 2024), that main-season rice (Barkhe dhan) occupies about 92% of the rice area and spring rice only about 7%. Spring rice is normally sown between late February and early March and transplanted in the Nepali month of Chaitra. It needs more frequent irrigation than main-season rice, but it improves land-use efficiency and adds to annual household income.

Timing is the hard part. Sowing too early can expose the crop to irregular temperatures and irrigation shortages; sowing too late can push flowering and maturity into high-temperature stress. In Rautahat, the late harvest of the preceding crop adds further uncertainty. The Prime Minister Agriculture Modernization Project (PMAMP) has run a paddy seed zone in the district since fiscal year 2073/74, yet the determinants of farmers' sowing and varietal decisions had not been well documented.

How the study was designed

• Site: Chandrapur Municipality, within the PMAMP paddy seed zone of Rautahat district, Madhesh Province.
• Sample: 91 spring rice growers chosen by simple random sampling from a population of 400, with sample size set by Cochran's formula (95% confidence, 9% margin of error).
• Data: pre-tested structured questionnaire (pre-tested on ten growers), focus group discussion, key informant interviews with PMAMP staff, cooperative members, progressive farmers and seed distributors, and on-farm observation. The tables cite a 2025 field survey.
• Analysis: descriptive statistics in Microsoft Excel and SPSS; chi-square tests of association; one-way ANOVA with Tukey HSD and LSD post-hoc tests (significance at p < 0.05); a five-point Likert scale and an index of importance for challenges.

Who are the farmers?

Most respondents were men (89.0%) aged 30–60 years (78.0%), and 73.6% worked mainly in agriculture. Madhesi households made up 78% of the sample, and 43% of respondents were illiterate. Most (89.0%) had less than five years of experience with spring rice, so many were relatively new to the crop. Holdings were small, averaging 1.62 katha, but most of the land was irrigated.

What did the statistical tests show?

Farmers without irrigation chose early-maturing varieties almost exclusively (14 of 15), while farmers with irrigated land were more evenly split between early and late types. Farmers lacking seed access were also more likely to choose early-maturing varieties. Those with market access were more likely to have seed on hand (70.2%) than those without (45.5%), which the authors link to better connections with seed vendors.

On sowing time, Tukey tests showed that early planting cost more per kilogram than mid planting (by 5.54 Rs/kg) and late planting (by 7.36 Rs/kg). Hardinath-1, the most widely grown spring variety, had only a marginal effect on cost and no significant effect on production or income.

How farmers choose a variety

Almost all farmers grew dwarf varieties (97.8%). Disease resistance (84.6%) and insect-pest resistance (81.3%) were major selection criteria, and suitability for beaten rice split the sample (47.3% prioritised it). Most farmers (89.0%) did not use spring rice straw. The authors link the strong preference for early-maturing varieties to water: early types pass through their most water-sensitive stages sooner, before the dry pre-monsoon period.

What challenges do farmers face?

The mean constraint score was 3.52 on the five-point scale, which the authors describe as a moderate-to-high level of difficulty. Lack of information was the least reported overall constraint (35.2%).

What this means for farmers and extension workers

The authors recommend stronger technical advice through service providers, better irrigation facilities with priority for marginalised farmers, training, group meetings and farmers' fairs on spring rice varieties and sowing and transplanting dates, and policy measures for timely, affordable seed, fertiliser, irrigation and credit. Since irrigation and seed access both shape variety choice, timely seed supply in the PMAMP seed zone is a practical starting point.

What this means for researchers

The finding that sowing time affects cost and productivity but not family income is worth following up. The authors suggest that small farm size and fluctuating market prices may dampen the effect of productivity differences on income. Field trials that compare sowing dates and varieties under controlled conditions would complement this survey; a related study compared nine spring rice genotypes against Hardinath-1 in the eastern Terai, and the review of rice mechanisation in Nepal discusses spring rice as a priority for mechanised transplanting.

Limitations

• The survey covered selected areas of one district, not all rice-growing regions of Nepal.
• Complete farmer records were hard to obtain, which limited sampling.
• Recall of exact sowing dates may contain error.
• Time and budget limits restricted the scope and number of respondents.

How to cite

Bhurtel, P., Neupane, B., Pandey, B., & Paudel, S. (2026). Factors influencing farmers' decision on sowing time and variety selection for spring season rice in Rautahat District, Nepal. Tropical Agrobiodiversity, 7(2), 113–120. https://doi.org/10.26480/trab.02.2026.113.120

See the publications page for Bishal Neupane's other rice and farm-survey work. Supervisors and collaborators interested in rice systems, crop calendars or decision-making in South Asian agriculture can reach him through the contact page.