No Lean Season

This research aimed to experimentally test whether loan subsidy programme has positive impacts in addressing seasonal food insecurity in rural Nepal. The study also explored how migration may transform rural agricultural labour markets by studying the effects of seasonal migration on both rural labour supply and labour demand. The beneficiaries of the loan programme were from the poorest households in Kailali and Kanchanpur districts of Sudurpashchim province of Nepal. CESLAM/Social Science Baha identified these households in each village through the Participatory Wealth Ranking (PWR) exercise where the villagers ranked themselves and other households in the village in four categories in terms of the relative poverty status of each household in the village. Following the identification of poorest households, baseline survey was conducted in all the households in over 100 villages in two districts. The baseline survey was followed with periodic phone surveys in the sampled households. The effectiveness of the loan programme was assessed through randomised controlled trial (RCT) method.