Nepal’s milk heartland rebounds

The terraced fields fall away from the road in gentle waves, each neatly scored into brown ruts like a freshly moulded bar of chocolate. “All potatoes, newly planted,” explains Ram pointing inside the plastic greenhouses with vegetables for the Kathmandu market. Not a rice paddy in sight, we stop the vehicle and I jump out to take a quick photograph. Not so quick, as it turns out.

Nepal has regressed from a major exporter of rice to a net importer, nearly Rs250million worth annually, but that is not why we are here. Our day trip is to learn how the New Zealand government has assisted some Kavre farmers convert paddy fields to grow year-round forage crops for their animals, thus reducing workloads and increasing dairy production.

We drive another 20 minutes up the winding road southwest from Panauti, the urban sprawl thins and the valley narrows, sheltering cherry blossom and orange trees along the alder-lined river. At Aruchour a group of Tamang farmers are bundled up in warm jackets waiting on the dusty early-morning roadside. Work-worn hands help me clamber down gullies and teeter along trenches that line their terraces to see the flourishing winter crops of dense green oats and flowering vetch which will be cut and blended as the perfect feed for domestic livestock.

Dinesh Pariyar, project leader and veteran of Nepal’s Agriculture Research Council, tells me that since 2003 many species of oats have been trialled before this variety was selected as most suitable for the soil, climate and animals. Ram Prasad Ghimire, head of the government fodder and pasture division, adds that hours of women’s time previously spent collecting feedstuff from the hills are saved, competition for scant resources is avoided and livestock forage guaranteed throughout the year. Most importantly, this innovation has resulted in improved milk yields from cows and buffaloes, by as much as 36%.

Two women farmers from the cooperative adjust their red shawls and laugh at their sensible canvas shoes. They do not regret switching some of their fertile fields to animal fodder. “Supplying Kathmandu, we take our surplus milk to the collection centre once during winter and twice a day in summer. We can make an extra Rs50,000 per year and send our children to school and college,” says one. Three happy cows serenely peruse us from beside the ochre-daubed homestead and a blue kingfisher flashes overhead.

Further on, we see oats, vetch, sorghum and berseem being propagated for seeds. For the first time Nepali farmers do not have to rely on substandard imported supplies. A bilious bright mini-tiller demonstrates how land can be ploughed in a matter of hours instead of backbreaking days needed with oxen or bullocks. Dinesh tells me they have supplied several of these mechanical marvels, as well as reapers and seed threshers, that are rotated around the cooperatives. My Tamang ladies nod in agreement. They too get a turn.

Replicated throughout the country and shared with hundreds of thousands of farmers, this new technology, income from seeds and improved dairy yields have also helped earthquake recovery. As one of the worst hit wards in the April 2015 disaster, Aruchour is scattered with new earth bag houses funded by the National Reconstruction Authority.

Although there were few fatalities, every upland home was damaged and most of their animals lost, tethered and trapped beneath the collapsed buildings. During the miserable aftermath, villagers were crammed four households into one tent.

It is time to climb the clay clinging trail to the ridgetop house where 30 farmers are waiting, most of them women. Clutching bitter-smelling marigolds and plied with tea and orange katas, we discuss progress and they enquire after Dr Keith and Professor John, the New Zealand Lincoln University specialists who have worked with them for over 20 years. Looking around the circle of colourful garments and attentive faces, I realise how little I know about the exhaustive farming practices that shape the landscape of Nepal.

John wrote me that one of his best moments was sitting with a women’s cooperative leader outside her home looking up at hills covered in shrubs and trees. She said: “Before you came we used to spend hours each day up there trying to find fodder for our livestock. Now we can sit here and watch the forest grow.”

For some time my mobile has been ringing insistently, a wrong number I assume and silence its intrusion. Engrossed in the meeting’s milking chat and musings on transformed lives, it is not until we reach Lakuri Bhangjyang on the shortcut back to Kathmandu that I take the call.

“Have you lost your wallet?”

I scramble in my bag, and sure enough it is missing, not only cash but the full disaster of driving licence, passes and cards in a navy leather purse with silver crest dating from the Prince of Wales’ first trek in Nepal.

An unlikely couple on a motorcycle are revealed to be my saviours, my heros, my guardian angels. The saintly Mr Hari Timilsina and Mr Tamang (right) had found my wallet on the roadside where I had stopped for that photograph, and persisted in tracking me down. Mysterious phone negotiations are conducted as we retrace our steps to rendevous in a busy Panauti street. Mr Tamang hovers, short and shy, prefering not even to divulge his name. Trucks roar past as a black plastic briefcase is carefully unzipped by Mr Timilisina, tall, thin and eyes glittering with goodwill. My wallet is produced with panache. “I am a social worker,” he grins, handing it to me, everything intact.

Contented cows munch in the sunshine as we leave the coveted township of Panauti, alleged to be immune from earthquakes, secured on a massive single stone. Dinesh and Ram laugh at my luck. Panauti’s sacred confluence temples are nearby, where only the enlightened can perceive the fabled third river, but there is no time to give thanks for my extraordinary and undeserved good fortune.