The asymmetric effects of crops productivity, agricultural land utilization, and fertilizer consumption on carbon emissions: revisiting the carbonization-agricultural activity nexus in Nepal

Agriculture plays an integral part in facilitating socioeconomic development in Nepal. However, it is also associated with environmental concerns which need to be controlled for the sake of ensuring environmental and agricultural sustainability in tandem. Against this backdrop, this current study aims to check whether shocks to the levels of agricultural productivity, land utilization for crop production, and fertilizer consumption influence the carbon dioxide emission figures of Nepal over the 1965-2018 period. The long-run associations between these variables are confirmed from the cointegration analysis. Besides, the outcomes from the asymmetric non-linear autoregressive distributed lag regression analysis show that crop productivity does not influence the emission levels in Nepal. However, a decline in the land area used for crop production purposes is evidenced to trigger higher emissions of carbon dioxide both in the short- and long run. On the other hand, higher fertilizer consumption is found to boost the short- and long-run carbon dioxide emission levels in Nepal. Accordingly, considering the objective of reducing agriculture-based emissions, this study recommends the Nepalese government to adopt policies that can enhance the productivity of low energy-intensive crop production, stimulate green agriculture and non-agriculture activities, and minimize the use of chemical fertilizers in arable lands.