Nepal Now: On the Move
We're talking with the people migrating from, to, and within this Himalayan country located between China and India. You'll hear from a wide range of Nepali men and women who have chosen to leave the country for better work or education opportunities. Their stories will help you understand what drives people — in Nepal and worldwide — to mortgage their property or borrow huge sums of money to go abroad, often leaving their loved ones behind.
Despite many predictions, migration from Nepal has not slowed in recent years, except briefly during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic. About 1 million Nepalis leave every year to work at jobs outside the country. Tens of thousands go abroad to study. Far fewer return to Nepal to settle. The money ('remittances') that workers send home to their families accounts for 25% of the country's GDP, but migration impacts Nepal in many other ways. We'll be learning from migrants, experts and others about the many cultural, social, economic and political impacts of migration.
Your host is Marty Logan, a Canadian journalist who has lived in Nepal's capital Kathmandu off and on since 2005. Marty started the show in 2020 as Nepal Now.
Nepal Now: On the Move
Desperate farmers hijack smuggled fertilizer: agriculture in Nepal today
Last Saturday two trucks carrying smuggled fertilizer across the southern border between India and Nepal were seized at Nepal customs. Police took charge and were escorting the trucks to the capital Kathmandu when they were blocked on the highway by desperate farmers in Dhading district, who seized 400 of the 500 bags of fertilizer and vanished, reported the Kathmandu Post.
Fertilizer shortages are a perennial issue in Nepal. This year the Russian attack on Ukraine has caused a global shortage, possibly worsening the situation here. Also, the monsoon came early, so the fertilizer was needed sooner than usual because farmers were ready to plant rice in their waterlogged fields earlier than in most years. A day after the truck hijacking some farmers started planting without the fertilizers, hoping for the best, again reported the Post.
Those events symbolize the state of agriculture in Nepal today. Dependent on external input, the country’s food supply is at the whim of events outside of its border so when calamities hit, like the invasion of Ukraine and the Covid-19 pandemic, alarm bells ring. On top of that, much agriculture land is unused as hundreds of thousands potential farmers seek greener pastures working as migrant labourers in India, Malaysia and Persian Gulf countries. Finally, climate change is scrambling weather patterns and generating many more extreme weather events, like drought and torrential rainfall, which endanger crops. Once a rice exporter, today Nepal depends on imports to feed its nearly 30 million people.
In its recent budget the government, like many before it, pledged to revive agriculture. Led by mechanization and improved seeds the country will boost rice production three times and cut overfall food imports by one-third, it promised.
Today’s guest, development policy expert Jagannath Adhikari, is sceptical of the promises. He says that Nepal should be focusing on rebooting traditional family farming, in part so it generates enough food to feed the growing number of urban dwellers, but also so growers can earn the increased amount of cash required by today’s farming families.
Resources
Fertilizer truck hijacking — report in the Kathmandu Post
Climate change and agriculture — op-ed article
UN Food System Summit meeting, Kathmandu, September 2021
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Music by audionautix.com.
Thank you to PEI in Bankhundole and Himal Media in Patan Dhoka for the use of their studio.
Nepal Now is produced and hosted by Marty Logan.
