Household Classification

Wellbeing and income categories are used to classify households. Wellbeing is a measure of the broader social and economic status of households in in a community and contains elements of social and economic indicators. Most household members in a CFUG are ranked in terms of wellbeing through a participatory approach. In a participatory wellbeing ranking process, a CFUG member who participates is ranked into a wellbeing category based on socioeconomic factors. The staff of bilateral projects like the Livelihood and Forestry Programme (LFP), NGOs, CBOs, District Forest teams and the FECOFUN work as facilitators to inform all the participants about the wellbeing ranking, its objective and usefulness to conduct the wellbeing ranking of the group. The leading socioeconomic and social status factors selected for wellbeing ranking were more or less same in each CFUG. The factors determining the household categories were landholding size, sufficiency of food grains, livestock holdings, education level of household family members, employment in public service, NGO service, remittance from overseas and India, family size, off-farm income, and physical properties such as house, machinery, tractors, buses, taxis and trucks ownership. This categorisation of wellbeing ranking by wealth and social status through the participatory approach is well recognised in rural development projects and most government line agencies, and NGOs have replicated it in their own initiatives (Malla, et al., 2005; Sollis, 1992) .

However, in rural Nepal, the identification of the wellbeing category is still a subjective and onerous process (National Planning Commission, 2006, 2007). A rich household in one community may be poor in another community and a woman belonging to a high income household may have a higher workload than a woman in a household with a low income

79 (Dhakal, 2006). Details of what constitute rich, medium, poor and poorest households are outlined below:

Rich: In this category, households have houses made of bricks, some livestock, at least one member of the family in a public job, engaged in business or with some other secure off-farm income, able to lend money to the others and having a lot of trees on their own land. They have the capacity to use mechanised tools for agricultural production. Those who earn off- farm income are mainly in government service, teachers, persons working abroad and servicemen in the Indian, Brunei or British armies. They all have a communication device including mobile phones, radios, televisions, digital cameras, movie cameras or cassette players.

Medium: These households have medium-size houses built with slate, tin and second class brick. They have their own agricultural land and employ farm labour. They have the capability to use chemical fertilizer and improved seeds as a semi-mechanised farmers. They have medium off-farm income or a small business, and are able to send their children to a medium type of school and college. They have 3 to 4 livestock. They may have some type of communication accessories such as digital cameras, video cameras or televisions.

Poor: Mostly illiterate or with limited access to education. They have medium-sized thatched houses. Most have poor quality, small land holdings, and 1 to 2 livestock. They cultivate other farmer’s land on a sharing basis. They are mostly engaged as wage labourers by rich and elite farmers and send their children to local government schools. They have no trees on their farm and rely on the CF for their basic forest product needs. They usually do not have any communication devices except a radio.

Poorest: They have insufficient livestock and land for their basic needs. They have no other source of income. They have to work as daily wage labourers for rich and medium households. They are unable to send their children to school. Almost all have no trees on their own farmland and they depend on the CF for their basic forest product needs. They do not have any communication device.

The average wellbeing of the households of 31 CFUGs are presented in Figure 5.2. On average, rich households were 22%, medium 43%, poor 28% and poorest 9% in the CFUGs of the surveyed area. There were 37% of households in the poor and poorest categories that

80 represented a large proportion of the CFUGs. National data show that these categories of wellbeing households are 41.8% nationally (World Bank, 2008). Thus there is a lower percentage of poor and poorest households in surveyed area compared with the national level.

Figure 5.2 Average proportion of households by wellbeing on CFUG and EC in 31 CFUGs in the sampled area

The average percentage of households represented on the EC from the categories were rich 59%, medium 21%, poor 17% and poorest 4%. This result indicates that rich households were considerably over represented on the ECs of CFUGs compared with the same categories representation in the communities. The medium, poor and poorest households were under represented on the ECs of CFUGs.

5.8.2 Food sufficiency

For this thesis another measure of wealth is food sufficiency. This was categorized on the basis of food production from farmer’s own land in a year.

0.22 0.43 0.28 0.09 0.59 0.21 0.17 0.04 0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7

Rich HH Medium HH Poor HH Poorest HH

Proportopn of Households in CFUG by wellbieng Proportion of Households on EC by wellbing

81 Over 12 month food sufficiency with surplus: This category refers to households having sufficient food for over 12 month, with a surplus that can be sold and 20 to 30 Ropani10of good quality of their own farm land including khet and Bari.

12 month food sufficiency: Sufficient food for 12 months, and some surplus that may be used to buy other household needs, and 10 to 20 Ropani of their own farmland.

9 month food sufficiency: Household with sufficient food for 9 months from own farmland, and 7 to 10 Ropani of their own farmland.

6 month food sufficiency: Sufficient for 6 months, and 5 to 10 Ropani of their own farmland.

3 month food sufficiency: Sufficient food for 3 months or less, and with less than 5 Ropani of farmland or landless.