Acting locally and contributing globally: Tharu local knowledge and practices for climate-resilient agriculture in Nepal Buddhi Chaudhary 1,2 , Greg Acciaioli 1 , William Erskine 2 1 UWA School of Social Sciences; 2 UWA School of Agriculture and Environment, The University of Western Australia, 35 Stirling Highway, Crawley, WA 6009, Australia Introduction Local knowledge, which integrates traditional, Indigenous and scientific knowledge (FAO, 2004), helps to deal with complex problems such as climate change adaptation and mitigation in agriculture (Figure 1) (Galloway McLean, 2009). The Tharu people have pre-dominantly engaged in agriculture for centuries (Hamilton, 1889) and their knowledge and agriculture practices are often described in relation to climate change in Nepal (Devkota et al., 2011). Fieldwork and the Tharu in Nepal Fig. 2. Fieldwork sites (Thapuwa and Bikri villages), Bardiya, Nepal Fig. 3. Hareri: Ritual prayers for green and productive crops in the Tharu community Tradition of zero-tillage and mixed cropping Discussions Fig. 6. Framework of benefits: Mitigation/adaptation, profitability and knowledge type References Devkota, R. P., Bajracharya, B., Maraseni, T. N., Cockfield, G., & Upadhyay, B. P. (2011). The perception of Nepal’s Tharu community in regard to climate change and its impacts on their livelihoods. International Journal of Environmental Studies, 68(6), 937-946. FAO. (2004). What is Local Knowledge. Retrieved 24/11/2017, from FAO http://www.fao.org/tempref/docrep/fao/007/y5610e/y5610e00.pdf Galloway McLean, K. (2009). Advanced Guard: Climate Change Impacts, Adaptation, Mitigation and Indigenous Peoples – A Compendium of Case Studies (UNU-IAS Ed.). Darwin, Australia: United Nations University (UNU) - Institute of Advanced Studies (IAS), Traditiona Knowledge Initiative. Hamilton, F. B. (1819). An Account of the Kingdom of Nepal and of the Territories Annexed to this dominion by the House of Gorkha. New Delhi: Manjusri Pub. House. Sapkota, T. B., Jat, M. L., Aryal, J. P., Jat, R. K., & Khatri-Chhetri, A. (2015). Climate change adaptation, greenhouse gas mitigation and economic profitability of conservation agriculture: Some examples from cereal systems of Indo-Gangetic Plains. Journal of Integrative Agriculture, 14(8), 1524-1533. Contact: Buddhi Fig. 1 A) Zero-tillage of lentil , B) Mixed cropping of lentil and Brassica sp. A B Email: 21817338@student.uwa.edu.au Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/buddhi-chaudhary-a0577728/ ORCID: https:// orcid.org/0000-0002-1367-9855 Fig. 4. Prevalence of zero-tillage and mixed cropping in lentil. Farmers practice zero-tillage because it has much reduced cost of production compared to conventional tillage (Sapkota et al., 2015). Indigenous/local knowledge contributes to mitigation/adaptation, but profit may be lower than from the scientific knowledge. Scientific knowledge Local knowledge Zero- tillage Dehari Relay sowing Mixed crop Hybrid seed Inorganic Fertilizer Indigenous knowledge Herbicide Pesticide Riverbed farming 43% 57% 82% 18% 0 20 40 60 80 100 Zero-tillage Conventional tillage Mixed cropping Sole cropping % Farmers practice Relay sowing (zero-tillage) of lentils in standing rice fields two weeks before harvest. Zero-tillage is decreasing over time. Mixed cropping is prevalent. 0 200 400 600 800 1000 Zero-tillage Conventional tillage Mixed cropping Sole cropping Yield (kg ha -1 ) y x Fig. 5. Reported lentil yields under zero-tillage and mixed cropping systems. Means associated with different letters are significantly different (p < 0.05) by t-test. Vertical bars show the standard errors of the mean (n=127). a Fieldwork: Six months, 2018 Research: Mixed methods Compost b