Impacts of Climate Change on Production of Cash Crops in Annapurna Conservation Area

Climate change has now become a global issue for the inhabitants of the earth. This research entitled "Impacts of Climate Change on Production of Cash Crops in Annapurna Conservation Area" was carried out in Lwang Ghalel V.D.C., Kaski district of Nepal with an objective to document the perception of local people towards climate change impacts and their responses, to analyse the production of cash crops annually and relation to climate change, assess the impacts of climate change on production of cash crops and to determine the adaptation measures used by local people against the climate change on cash crop production in Lwang Ghalel V.D.C. of Kaski district. Cash crops such as tea, Amriso, cardamom were the main production of the study area. Primary data were collected from household survey with semi-structured questionnaires, interview with key informants, group discussion, formal and informal discussion with random sampling method. Thirty years meteorological data (rainfall and temperature) was collected to study the rainfall and temperature pattern and different published and unpublished literatures were used for collecting secondary data. Data were analysed using MS-Excel and SPSS-11.5 and presented using tables, graphs and diagrams. The rainfall pattern seemed to be increased at the rate of 2.74 mm/year while the mean annual maximum and minimum temperature seemed to be increased by 0.064^oC/year and 0.01^oC/year respectively. 24% of the respondents told that tea was affected more from climate change than Amriso, cardamom and coffee. 65% of the respondents told that Amriso was the best adapted species from climate change due to its spreaded roots. Out of 50% respondents who gave response, 20% of the respondents told that the reason for decrease in production of cash crops annually was due to lack of management of market and draught. Awareness on climate change causes, impacts and adaptation, draught resistant varieties of seedlings should be distributed and reforestation and afforestation programs should be distributed to adapt with climate change.