Development Induced Food Insecurity and Poverty in Rural Nepal

Abstract

Historically, Nepal maintained a high degree of food self-reliance and even exported substantial quantities of grain. Over time, however, and despite constitutional and statutory commitments to the Right to Food, the country has increasingly come to depend on food imports. Drawing on long-term familiarity with rural settings and lived experiences, this paper adopts a perspective to reflect on how development-led modernisation has contributed to rising hunger in rural villages rather than alleviating it. The paper illustrates how modernisation has gradually undermined subsistence-based livelihoods, replacing locally grown and nutritious foods such as barley, wheat, millet and maize with commercially purchased and processed alternatives. It also reflects on the erosion of a former 'solidarity economy', in which rural households exchanged labour and shared food without monetary transactions. As labour relations have become increasingly cash-based and agriculture more commoditised, many farming families now sell their most nutritious produce to the market while consuming less healthy foods themselves. The paper argues that subsistence agriculture should not be dismissed as a sign of backwardness or poverty but recognised as a sustainable and culturally grounded pathway with significant potential to address Nepal's growing food crisis.