Outmigration and the rural-urban transition: Challenges and opportunities to crop-livestock interactions in Nepal - A systematic review

Outmigration is a significant driver of rapid rural-urban transformations in Nepal, influencing demographic, economic, and social dynamics while reshaping farming systems. Labor migration, particularly to international destinations, has resulted in agricultural labor shortages and evolving gender roles, leading to the feminization of agriculture. Simultaneously, remittances sent by migrants have created opportunities for rural households, enabling investments in mechanization, irrigation, and high-value crops. However, the impacts of outmigration remain highly heterogeneous, with evidence of both positive and negative consequences. Labor shortages often disrupt traditional crop-livestock systems, particularly for smallholders, while remittances encourage shifts from subsistence to commercial farming. These contrasting effects raise critical questions about how migration influences labor allocation, gender roles, and sustainable agricultural practices (Khatri et al., 2023; Paudel et al., 2020). Existing literature highlights key challenges such as land abandonment, reduced farming intensity, and changing rural power dynamics. For example, the traditional crop-livestock integrated production system, which relies heavily on household labor for feed and manure management, is compromised by labor shortages, leading to internal migration and underutilized agricultural land (Jaquet et al., 2015; Zhou et al., 2020). At the same time, behavioral factors, such as risk perceptions and aspirations, and structural barriers, including small land sizes, challenging terrains, and limited access to credit, constrain mechanization adoption and agricultural resilience (Gartaula et al., 2020; Paudel & Pandit, 2021). Additionally, gender disparities and unequal decision-making power further exacerbate vulnerabilities among nonmigrant households, deepening rural inequalities (Sharma et al., 2022; Thapa et al., 2023). Despite its critical importance, the transformation of feed and manure management within crop-livestock systems due to outmigration remains understudied. This study examines the effects of outmigration on rural-urban dynamics and their implications for Nepal’s farming systems, with a specific focus on crop-livestock interactions. It aims to (i) explore how outmigration shapes rural-urban migration and crop-livestock systems, (ii) analyze transformations in livestock subsectors concerning feed and manure management, and (iii) investigate the gendered dimensions of these changes. The manuscript is organized as follows: Section 2 outlines the systematic review methodology, Section 3 discusses labor shortages and gender dynamics, Section 4 explores the role of remittances in mechanization and commercialization, Section 5 addresses regional and socio-economic variations, Section 6 provides actionable policy recommendations, and Section 7 concludes with broader implications and future research directions. This structure offers a comprehensive understanding of outmigration’s transformative effects on farming systems in Nepal and identifies pathways for sustainable agricultural development.