Agriculture is an essential way of life in the remote hills of Kailash Rural Municipality, Makwanpur. For its 25,000 residents, life has only begun to get better as basic modern amenities like plumbing and electricity have arrived in the past decade. Amidst the bootstrapped modernities, livable income and food security are still hard to come by. A vast majority of its population continue to rely on agriculture or animal husbandry for their livelihood — 97.5% of its 25,333 residents, according to the Village Profile found on the Rural Municipality’s website. But this traditional way of life has never provided a secure livelihood. Commercialization has always been a major issue, as there is a lack of proper market setup for selling excess produce.
But even that is a far-off question for many households in Kailash. Unsustainable farming practices are a more fundamental threat, and the common saying that goes about hardships among Kailash farmers is that a family’s harvests typically only last them half the year. Food security is a defining pillar of quality of life, and poor food security inevitably creates an invisible resistance to improvement in all other aspects of life.
Shangri-La Development Association took this consideration to heart from the outset, as it aimed to develop interconnected programs in multiple essential areas of life with the goal of creating long-lasting quality of life improvements for its beneficiaries. The SDA Agriculture Project at Kailash Rural Municipality, Makwanpur was initiated with the idea that improvements in the RM’s agriculture practices could result in the greatest returns in terms of improvement of livelihood for its residents.
How SDA’s Agriculture Project Works
The SDA Agriculture Project revolves around Achim’s Agriculture Field, situated in KRM Ward no. 3, Latabari. Spread across a sprawling hilly landscape over 17,576 sq.m of land, Achim’s Agriculture Field acts as the crown jewel of our project integration efforts. The farm firstly acts as a model of sustainable, organic farming practices for the locals of KRM. But its impact goes much farther — the SDA Agriculture Project is deeply intertwined with each one of our impact sectors, from health to education with environment conservation emerging as a vital throughline across our agriculture initiatives.
Sustainable Organic Farming
Achim’s Agriculture Field utilises modern farming practices that combine discrete farming activities for synergistic results. Manure from the animal farms allow self-sufficiency by providing organic fertilisers, while diverse and carefully selected crops pave the way for greater productivity and better soil health.
Agriculture Training
Among the primary activities of the SDA Agriculture Project is the training sessions it conducts for local farmers. SDA is a valuable resource for local farmer groups, working closely with five registered farmer groups from KRM to disseminate knowledge and resources. The organisation regularly conducts detailed training sessions on modern farming practices and provides seedlings and other technologies as per need to help farmers modernise their operations.
SDA Literacy Home & Schools
The farm’s harvests directly support our education initiatives, providing nutritious, organic meals for the SDA Literacy Home, and allowing us to run free lunch programs in five schools within Kailash RM that are fully supported by SDA.
Animal Husbandry
Animal husbandry is a major aspect of our agriculture project, through which we seek to transform farming practices in Kailash RM. We support local farmers by raising and supplying them with profitable cattle breeds such as the boyer goat, known as one of the fastest-growing goat breeds, jersey cows, and local chicken. The animal farm occupies an important place in our holistic farming approach as it produces essential organic manure for our plantations, supplements our meal programs with protein-rich foods, and allows us to support local farmers in diversifying and modernising their farming practices.
Tree Nursery & Research Block
The farming area is further divided into four different blocks, each relegated to a different purpose. Of note are the tree nursery, where the Agriculture Project staff grow tree saplings that are distributed among farmers, with the dual purpose of providing better financial footing and to contribute towards improving the environmental sustainability of the region. The research block, meanwhile, includes our greenhouse where we grow new vegetable species to test for viability in the local climate. The greenhouse also allows us to engage in off-season farming, supporting our meal programs year-round.
A Need for Stronger Grassroot Connection
Farmer Groups are an important connecting point between SDA’s Agriculture Project and the local farming community. SDA works with five farmer groups in Kailash RM — three in Kailash-3, Ambatar, and one each in Kailash-4, Licche, and Kailash-7, Sarsi. Since each farmer group is required to have at least 18 members for registration, these five groups represent a large community of farmers, allowing the organisation invaluable access to target beneficiaries. As government-registered entities, they provide farmers in remote Nepal much-needed visibility from the government.
The Agriculture Section at the Office of Kailash Rural Municipality is quite active in how it supports local farmers. Giving a short overview of the agriculture programs of this past fiscal year, Section Chief Rawal Senchuri named numerous programs, broad as well as specific, aimed towards supporting local farmers. Some, like the Vegetable Farming Promotion Program, are generic programs that are made available to farmers to grow all kinds of common vegetables. Others, like the Beekeeping Program, are introduced to support specific individuals who are seeking to take on new practices. However, despite the enthusiasm and good intentions, these programs haven’t been as successful as he would like.
It begins with the fact that most programs introduced by the Agriculture Section are government grant programs — funds relegated for specific farming activities in which farmers are expected to pitch in half the amount. The reason that Senchuri gives for the focus on grant programs has to do with localised solutions. Given the abject poverty that is rampant in the area, most farmers are unable to fund agriculture operations that require big investments, leading to a grant-focused approach that has now settled into becoming the status quo.
But as the grants approach takes root on a systemic level, this approach has led to a lack of connection with the field. When asked about hands-on programs, Senchuri claimed that the few such programs that have been conducted by Kailash Rural Municipality saw little interest from farmers. The Agriculture Section Chief expresses personal dissatisfaction with the state of affairs. “What I learned as a student is that we as agriculture officers are extension workers,” he opined, “but what has been happening, in local-level administration all over, is that we are seen less as agriculture technicians and more as desk workers. And this has to change on the policy level; it doesn’t work if only some officers from some local levels do it.”
The Slow-Turning Wheels of Transformation
With a proliferation of grant-based programs and a lack of government connection with the grassroot level, there are issues related to mentality and practice that go unsolved. Senchuri referred to a broad trend of farmers looking at short-term gains that has hampered the transition to modern farming practices. The overall trend, and a major hurdle that stops genuine transformation from taking place, seems to be one of complacency — borne of multiple causes, from fear of the unknown to a tendency to favour short-term gains foregoing long-term prosperity.
But on the other side of this picture are farmers who are genuinely passionate about a vision of prosperity that is achieved through an expansion and systematisation of their own traditional farming profession. For them, hands-on support is the most valuable thing ever. In 2023, SDA conducted 5 training programs and 6 field visits to commercial farms for KRM farmers. The response is a mixed one, with an initial gratitude and spark of excitement eventually taken over by a complicit inaction, and a resignation to the old ways. In a remote region where community is everything and modern education is a privilege, farmers are easily discouraged from pursuing drastic changes to traditional farming practices when they are alone in the endeavour. This isn’t the only reason — agriculture expert Baburam Shrestha, who is also an SDA staff member, shares that farmers hesitate to try new things because there is a steep cost that comes with losing even a single harvest: farmers rely on them to feed them through the year. This is in spite of the fact that virtually every farmer who has taken part in SDA’s training programs, and there have been many over the years, understands on the fundamental level that these farming practices and new and improved varieties of crops introduced in SDA trainings present an opportunity for financial growth.
Farmer Akkal Syangyang of Ambatar Farmer Group is a perfect representation of this slow push to transformation, taking concrete steps towards a better future despite some setbacks. Like every farmer in rural Nepal, he inherited his farming knowledge from his parents, learning traditional methods for growing a variety of crops from plants like the corn, ubiquitous in Kailash, to various fruit trees. Around 18 years back, he attended some trainings organised by the KRM Agriculture Section, and then went on to be a member of a farmer group. Inspired by those early training sessions, he began to harbour a desire to develop his humble family profession into a commercial operation, capable of not just sustaining his family directly but also bringing him income. He has been taking slow but decisive steps towards modernising his own operation, steps which can clearly be seen at his farm. But the journey hasn’t been as swift as he hoped.
With SDA, Syangyang has attended at least three training sessions, and has a good understanding of concepts like organic manure. He recalls joining sessions on farming commercially viable vegetables like tomatoes and long beans, but commented that he could have made better use of the training if he had formal education. But a more telling detail came a bit later in the conversation – “It always feels inspiring when you attend an agriculture training session,” he revealed, “You want to take up those new ways. But when you see that other farmers aren’t so keen, you begin to lose interest as well.” Ideally, a motivated and action-oriented community of farmers would act as a positive feedback loop for individuals within the community, leading to rapid modernisation of farming practices. But as each farmer looks to the other from a place of inertia, a kind of diffusion of responsibility appears to take place, and sparks of inspiration find root with difficulty.
Chairperson of the Ambatar Farmer Group, Bishwa Bikram Malla, points to other reasons that compel farmers to stick to old ways. Known to locals for his flourishing farming operation, Malla has been taking a step back due to illness in the past some months. Having attended a few SDA training programs himself, he is fully aware of the health and environmental risks that come with the overuse of chemical fertilisers and pesticides. But he admits that he has been unable to adopt the organic farming practices advocated by the organisation. A big part of the reason, he shared, was the absolute necessity that many farmers feel for the use of chemical pesticides.
“We have to keep using chemical pesticides even when we know they are bad,” he stated, “The situation is that there isn’t much profit for farmers in Kailash. There is poor market management and the markets that do exist are quite far.” Reasons such as these force farmers to use tried and tested means of protecting their harvests. “So many vegetables that we grow, we can’t do without chemical pesticides and fertilisers. From tomatoes to potatoes, we are forced to use pesticides when growing these common vegetables.”
“Going organic is something that we all want in our hearts,” he said, “ but we have been unable to do so.”
Despite such complex reservations towards transformation, farmers of Kailash nevertheless continue to harbour an interest in modern agricultural practices — and it is out of this small ray of hope that they take action. Syangyang himself has been focusing on animal husbandry in recent years, and has started farming some commercial vegetables too. Armed with a deeply personal vision for commercialising his operation, he hopes to expand his animal farm enough to commercialise it. He then wants to use it as the foundation for a self-sufficient organic farm, where his cattle would produce enough waste manure to support an expansion of his plantations. Syangyang has also set up a manure pit outside his cowshed, which is the biggest change he has brought in his operation after attending SDA-hosted agriculture training sessions.
Meanwhile, over at Licche, farmer Vishnu Maya Ghalaan of Laalupaatey Farmer Group has taken strong initiative to make use of the knowledge gained from SDA training sessions. Having connected to SDA around five years ago, she has attended five training programs in that time. Inspired by those sessions, she decided to set up a separate nursery to try out the modern techniques she learned through the training. And the result has been noticeable, according to her – “There is a big difference in my harvests and the health of my plants since before and after I began applying these new technologies,” she said, “I am very happy that I have been able to gain new knowledge through the trainings.”
Starting an orange farm has been the biggest success for her in recent times. Through an SDA training program conducted in 2023, she learned all the intricate steps involved in growing oranges — from grafting orange trees to operating a nursery to care for the resulting saplings, she has properly applied the modern techniques taught at SDA trainings in her own farm, and is happy with how her farm is flourishing.
A Future Vision for A More Connected Agriculture Project
The future vision for SDA’s Agriculture Project continues to follow our dream to create a lasting change in the agriculture sector of Kailash Rural Municipality. An overhaul of farming practices in the region can have a domino effect on the quality of life for all its residents, beginning with greater food security and better financial prospects to a positive effect on the area’s health sector, where malnutrition is rampant.
In the eight years since SDA began its agriculture project, it has become known as a trustworthy partner that can be called upon to support the local farmers’ aspirations. Achim’s Agriculture Field has become a centre of support and resources for farmers, where they receive practical training, and the material resources to develop their profession, such as seedlings and materials for plastic tunnels.
Our future plans aim to further leverage the trust we have earned among the farmers of Kailash to develop an even deeper engagement with them, with the ultimate goal of helping them get over the final hump of complacency so that they may begin adopting modern farming techniques en masse.
It begins with a Farmers’ Training Centre: a permanent building at the site of Achim’s Agriculture Field that would literally and figuratively strengthen SDA’s ties to the Kailash farmers’ community. Agriculture Expert Baburam Shrestha envisions it as an information centre: a bustling hub where informative booklets and pamphlets are readily available for distribution, where notices on future trainings and farmer-focused events are posted for dissemination, and where discussions and training sessions are conducted with the aid of audio-visual material.
At the same time, the building would add much-needed functionality to the farm’s existing operations, where material supplies and harvests are stored. Following training programs, farmers would be free to collect necessary seedlings from the centre at their behest. And finally, the opportunity for practical training would be available right there in the backyard.
The other approach that Shrestha describes directly tackles the issue of complacency that has been holding farmers back from adopting the knowledge learned from SDA training sessions. “The training that we give can be termed as a kind of extension education,” he said, “the question is always how to disseminate the knowledge that we have, and how our agriculture staff can transfer the new knowledge and ideas that they have to the farmers.”
The most effective way to do that, he shares, is via the concept of model farmers. Rather than giving training to large groups of farmers where few adopt the new techniques, the idea focuses on the development of leader or model farmers who can inspire a powerful movement to adopt new methods simply by their own success in the new approach.
For this, the project will identify a tiny handful of deeply integrated locals who have the vision and desire to follow the modern farming approach advocated by SDA. These farmers will receive extended and in-depth trainings following which they will be tasked with creating demo plots by following the new training faithfully. The organisation will provide constant support and feedback to these model farmers, ensuring that they are following the techniques correctly. “We will provide everything from training and seeds, to any required technologies,” Shrestha said. And since the model farmers will be a very small group, it will be much easier to provide high-quality feedback and conduct frequent follow-up visits. The result will be a small collection of model farms developed by local farmers who have lived in the area all their lives, and are well-known to the community.
When the model farmers have successfully grown crops and vegetables using the new approach, SDA will conduct exposure visits to these demo plots for the local farmers’ community. “When farmers see that people from their own community are successfully adopting modern farming techniques, it will create a lot of interest and curiosity,” Shrestha shared, “There will be a lot of interaction among the farmers. And then there will be a gradual adoption among the remaining farmers. By utilising the concept of demo farms, we will make it easy for the entire community of farmers to make the decision to switch to the new approach.”
The Agriculture Project is already one of SDA’s successful projects, with a design that is deeply rooted in the organisation’s belief in an integrated, holistic approach to social work. It already supports our other projects in health and education in a direct manner. Our future vision for the project will move forward on our primary project objective of achieving a long-lasting change in agricultural practices of Kailash Rural Municipality, by forging an even stronger connection with its farmers.