Nepal is a developing country with 65% of its population engaged in agriculture and more than 25% of its population living below poverty line. Given the importance of agricultural growth for poverty reduction, substantial amount of resources have been invested to promote agricultural growth. Despite the emphasis on agricultural growth through research, extension and related services, farm productivity in Nepal remains significantly low. The agricultural sector in Nepal has grown much slower than elsewhere in South Asia. As a result, many questions have been raised about rural household wellbeing: What role does gender play in rural agricultural systems? How effective are current development interventions in improving household welfare? What impact does the non-farm sector have on the welfare of rural households? To explore these questions, among others, this dissertation examined three elements of rural development efforts in an international context: empirical examination of gender differences in rural livestock production; evaluation of the effect of agricultural technology on rural households' welfare; and analysis of the role of non-farm sector in rural household food security.℗ This dissertation is built around three independent essays based on data collected from villages in Nepal's Kaski district. The first essay titled "Gender and Livestock Ownership in Rural Households of Kaski District in Nepal," incorporates an analysis of gender component into livestock research by using sex-disaggregated data to empirically analyze women's ownership of livestock in rural farm households. The second essay titled "Effect of Off-Season Tomato Production on Crop Income and Food Security in Nepal," establishes a causal linkage between off-season tomato production inside plastic tunnels and households' crop income and food security using the nearest neighbor matching method. The final essay titled "Impact of Rural Non-Farm Employment on Food Security in Nepal," examines the effect of℗ rural non-farm employment on rural household food security by using two distinct matching methods: propensity score matching and direct covariate matching. On the basis of findings from the three essays, this dissertation provides gender sensitive and evidence based feedback for policy making to promote positive and sustainable development.
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