Thank you once again for supporting me on my VSO placement. Today I’ve got some stories to share that I hope will make you feel proud of the difference your generous gifts are making here in Nepal.
As I’ve mentioned in previous blogs, most people in Nepal rely on farming to feed themselves and earn a living, but in some areas nearly half the population is still living in poverty. My job is to help farmers build better futures for themselves by giving them new skills and confidence. I’ve been doing just that with the Joshi family.
New cheese, new income
Thanks to your support, I’ve helped the Joshi family develop a new product that will enable them to increase their income and support their children. Rather appropriately for a Somerset dairy farmer, the product I’ve helped create is a new cheese!
Entrepreneur and mother of two Binuka Joshi is a hero of mine. She runs Theki Dairy, and just a few months ago she spotted a gap in the market for a hand-made yoghurt. So she got some tuition in the craft of yoghurt making while her husband designed a logo based on a traditional Theki jar. They invested in simple equipment and a display fridge. Now, their Farm Fresh yoghurt is made daily using milk produced by the family’s cows and it’s already a hit in the local area.
But the hard-working Joshis didn’t want to stop there. They asked for some help in developing more products. They were already producing paneer, an unfermented Indian cheese which you might have come across when you’re out for a curry. But paneer is already readily available in Nepal, so Binuka was struggling to make a good profit from it.
We needed something brand new and Binuka was excited at the thought of offering her customers a fermented, European-style soft cheese. So in her micro dairy we made our first tentative efforts at creating this new cheese. Fortunately I had some vital cheese-making ingredients: rennet and freeze-dried starter that I’d brought from the UK.
Binuka standing proudly with her new product
The fine art of cheese-making
We used five litres of milk with the aim of making 500 grams of cheese. Everything was going well until we added the rennet. After nearly an hour’s wait, we’d only manage to produce a very weak curd. So we waited another hour and eventually a stronger curd developed. We cut it, filled handmade moulds and left them to drain overnight. The next day we salted the now firm cheese.
So we’d made a cheese and Binuka was delighted. But I was not happy! The curd was too hard and salty. The extra waiting time had dried it out.
After several more attempts we finally got the soft cheese we’d been aiming for and Binuka named it ‘Theki Maid’. Keen to start promoting her new cheese, Binuka took it to a local farmers’ market where it was well received. Theki Maid now features on her shop display board and its sales are really promising!
It took six weeks from conceiving the idea, making and testing the product to finally putting the cheese in the chiller for sale. We’ve all learnt a great deal as well as having fun – and Binuka is already coming up with ideas for her next product. She and her family really are great role models for others in the community who, like the Joshis, are working hard to build sustainable livelihoods for themselves.
Would you commute up Ben Nevis to earn 50p?
I had a reminder of how hard life can be for Nepalese farmers when I was out vegetable shopping recently.
As I pondered over the choice of cabbage, beans and carrots, I noticed a woman taking off her ‘doka’, the basket that is carried by a strap around the head. She removed a blue plastic bag from her doka and took it to the shopkeeper.
The ‘doka’ that everyone uses to carry things, and the blue plastic bag of ‘jungle veg’
When she left, I asked the shopkeeper what she was selling. He explained that she had walked from her village, Duwar, with a root vegetable called bantaru that she’d dug up in the forest. Bantaru looks a bit like ginger and apparently has a lovely taste, so I was keen to give it a try. I bought half a kilo for 40 rupees, just under 30p. The shopkeeper had given the woman 80 rupees for her entire bag of bantaru – six kilos. Some simple maths shows a mark-up of 600%!
Later that day I looked on the map for the woman’s village, Duwar. In doing so, I discovered how much effort had gone into making those 80 rupees. The woman had found the bantaru in the forest, dug it up, walked 6.5 kilometres from her village to the shop and then done the return journey. During that walk she had climbed 1400 metres, which is slightly more than the height of Ben Nevis. And all for 80 rupees – just over 50p. To put that into context, a kilo of rice costs 60 rupees.
Thank you again.
My short but powerful encounter with the lady selling bantaru gave me a stark reminder of why I’m here. I’m even more determined to share my skills to ensure that farmers’ hard work results in efficient, secure livelihoods.
With your continued support, I’m confident that we can make a difference to the lives of farmers here in Nepal. Thank you so much again for your help.
Best wishes,
Simon
