Hello and welcome to my first update from Nepal! Firstly, thank you so much for choosing to receive my volunteer updates, by sharing updates on the work and progress I make I hope you’ll be able to see the amazing impact your kind gifts are having on people living in poverty. I will be using the skills I’ve learnt through many years farming at my home in Somerset, to work with local farmers here in Nepal to improve life for them and their communities. I know firsthand how there is no substitute for hard work and good people on a farm to really make it work and this is why I think volunteering is so important to really making international development work.
A country of extremes
Nepal is one of the poorest and most unequal countries in South Asia. The country has been in relative peace since the end of a ten year civil war in 2006, however over half of the working-age population are unemployed or underemployed, and the adult literacy rate is below 30% in the poorest areas. Almost 40% of children are malnourished and many communities don’t have access to safe drinking water. In this country where extreme climates are already a part of the landscape, climate change is increasingly impacting farmers who are already struggling to reach the markets their livelihoods depend on. VSO has been working in Nepal since 1964 and has identified securing the futures of workers as vital to lifting many communities out of poverty. I’m very proud and excited to be joining this community, especially with my personal experience and skills.
Most Nepali’s are subsistence farmers, producing food on a small scale for their own use, and turning any surplus into cash. However, Nepal is largely food insecure and many people aren’t able to produce enough food for themselves and their families. On top of this, natural disasters like floods, landslides, major earthquakes, drought and famine are part of life here.
I’ll be working with some of the most vulnerable communities looking at ways to improve productivity so that not only will they be able to feed themselves, but will also be able to start making a living and overcome poverty.
Getting to know Nepal
My placement is in Lamjung, an area in central Nepal that consists largely of agricultural communities. As part of my placement I will be working with many of these communities and looking at ways to overcome some of the challenges facing them and preventing them making the most out of their land.
Before starting work on my placement in Lamjung however I spent some time in agricultural areas near the capital, Katmandu so I could get a sense of some of the challenges facing farmers here and things that I am going to need to start thinking about.
Building and maintaining rice fields is exhausting and time consuming work but unless the monsoon rains come there will be no rice growing in these fields this year
The first signs of agriculture I saw were of rice farming. It’s unmissable, for miles around you can see entire hill sides terraced into paddy fields. At first this is a beautiful and striking scene but looking closer I could start to see some of the difficulties farmers here are facing. Rice cultivation depends on wet soil, very wet soil. Without rain, rice farming simply couldn’t happen.
The terraces that dominated the landscape are created to hold the water back, but if there is no rain or it arrives late then there is no water to capture and therefore no water to plant the rice in. This year monsoon rains arrived late and in small amounts. Consequently, rice planting was incomplete. This is happening all over the country. With the progression of climate change, weather patterns are likely to change, so rice farmers here in Nepal will need to adapt. But here is the major issue. Nepal is one of the poorest countries in Asia; families here are often living on the very minimum, so investing in new farming techniques or equipment isn’t an option. But with your support, as a VSO volunteer, I will be able to share some of my farming skills and experience with some of the most marginalised communities to help them find a long term, sustainable source of income and build themselves a life out of poverty.
Thank you
Once again thank you for your generosity and support as part of the VSO community. I look forward to updating you on the changes I make and the people I will meet.
Simon
