A friend in Rasuwa was telling me about how things were now better. His father had died when he was very young and his mother did labor work to support the three growing boys; they were landless. But now all three had jobs, there were seven goats, the family had a house and four grandchildren, by choice, were living with his mom. My friend was the only person in his village to achieve a higher education level. This was all very poignant for me as I sat in the room, with spider webs in the corner and two beds and a TV that the four children shared with his mother.
As I sat next to the road waiting for the bus to bring me back to Kathmandu I looked back at the village in which a number of homes had been destroyed during the earthquake, where there was no collected water meaning that not even kitchen gardens were being planted and where there were few livelihood opportunities except for two tea shops.
During my week in Rasuwa I observed two different tomato training sessions taught by local District Agriculture Development Office (DADO) officials, specifically how to build and plant in a tunnel. These trainings were very practical for the 30 participants in each class. It was positive to see that the local NGO sponsoring these sessions, Community Self Reliance Centre (CSRC), was partnering with the DADO to teach very practical information. While observing I noticed that many of the participants were not taking notes because they were illiterate. I wondered how they would remember the various measurements for the tunnel and also for planting.
After the training CSRC would be providing seeds packets and plastic, in collaboration with the DADO. There would be further inputs but only after the tunnels were built. The participants also spoke about their lack of water, but the DADO officials and CSRC staff seemed to think that waste water collection would be enough to provide proper irrigation, at least during the dry season. This was a look into a three party collaboration consisting of community members, DADO and CSRC. However this would not end with the trainings and inputs, but would go further to helping to ensure markets for the tomato and other crop growers.
I wanted to find out more about the connections to markets as this is a key link for the growers in ensuring a good return on their efforts. Besides DADO officials, I also visited a few collection centres, Agricultural Development Committee (ADC) members, farmer’s groups and cooperatives officials. What I found was that there was no system, i.e. market chain in place to help the farmers to market their products. The one operating collection centre wasn’t collecting, potentially a problem caused by the earthquake, a new collection centre hadn’t opened and had no funds for operating expenses; the cooperatives, although having agriculture in their names were only about savings and loans.
Regardless of what is currently happening, there is great opportunity to make a major difference and establish a market system, great collaborations, that would enable the entire area to grow and prosper. Fortunately, the DADO Officer is very progressive and has numerous ideas. But it takes more than one person. Everyone needs to agree on a working modality that makes sense and then follow through.
Imagine strategically located collection centres that are focused on creating market linkages, including transportation, cooperatives which help farmers and are entrepreneurial to the point of encouraging agriculture value added businesses, e.g. tomato sauce factory, creating more jobs, the ADC helping to make further market connections, farmers’ groups which help their members to get product to the collection centres, with the DADO providing support in terms of trainings, funding for collection centres and providing inputs.
As with my friend, breaking out of the confines of his village and pursuing higher education, anything is possible. But it takes time, huge will to do things differently, follow-through and leadership in order to make change possible. And yes one must also have vision and be a dreamer.
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