FORWARD thinking

At bus stops, control points and restaurants, roadside selling of fruit and vegetables is as popular in Nepal as elsewhere. Carrots and radishes as long as your forearm, heads of cauliflower and cabbages, and mounds of tomatoes and assorted green leafy vegetables are stacked attractively on the roadside stalls. And, because Nepal has few main roads and these are narrow, laden with highly decorated but grindingly slow trucks that trap other road users to their lack of pace, there is a constant source of potential customers rolling past. Some are ready to wind down a window and buy, and it is often children who dart out into the traffic to act as runners between stall and driver. But the vegetable buying phenomenon is relatively recent. It seems that efforts by NGOs to educate people to the nutritional benefits of vegetables has meant that Nepali families now eat them far more regularly than before. This is what has created the new and lucrative market that many would like to exploit.

Vegetables can, of course, give a much higher return per unit of land than cereals and are worth growing even in small quantities not least for their nutritional value. The difficulties arise over the marketing and sale of small quantities of produce and especially the transport of delicate, perishable goods grown in the remote and hilly terrain that covers much of Nepal. For an individual grower on a small plot of land, the quantity that is ready for sale at any one time is necessarily limited and, if the trek to market is long and difficult, simply not worth while. This has meant that the first people to exploit the new market have been those who are relatively close to a road, receptive to new ideas and able to farm a reasonably sized parcel of fertile land. By definition, such people are comparatively wealthy and prudent to harness the marketing opportunities; although in practice it is the brokers and traders who accrue largest proportion of benefits of the agri-business. But does this mean that poorer, and less powerful people who tend to lag behind must be excluded? Not according to Yam Bahadur Thapa, chairman of an NGO based in Bharatpur called FORWARD (Forum for Rural Welfare and Agricultural Reform for Development) who sees real benefits in bringing vegetable selling opportunities to the underprivileged and poor in remoter parts of the country. The challenge has been how to achieve this.

Credit: FORWARD

FORWARD has a team of specialists experienced in working alongside rural communities, not only in agricultural production techniques but also in research, training, micro-credit, marketing etc. They also recognize that rural development efforts must take account of the local social hierarchies. In a society with a strong adherence to a caste system, for example, it is very difficult to encourage people of low caste to undertake activities they see as more properly belonging to their social superiors. It would be socially unacceptable and therefore counter productive should an organization discriminate in favour of a socially inferior caste however keen it may be to support those most in need. It was known that if more powerful and affluent groups of growers were excluded from efforts to establish a marketing system for vegetables, problems would inevitably arise.

FORWARD worked with local communities in the higher areas of Nepal that have the right climate for growing the vegetables sought after by consumers in towns and cities. They introduced the idea of growing vegetables for sale and eventually a number of producer groups were established. All those interested could benefit from the adaptive research results and technical advice on offer and they could sell their produce at the regional collection centres that had been set up. The bigger, more affluent farmers, who had more confidence in their ability to take on new technologies, were quick to take advantage of the system and began to earn significant amounts of money. But the lower class people, because of their smaller plots of marginal land and their natural diffidence, were failing to benefit.

Credit: FORWARD

In order to overcome the logistical problem of the quantities of produce being too small to be worth conveying to the collection centres, buying agents were appointed - chosen by the local people - who would buy direct from any grower willing to sell. Although the system worked well initially, it soon broke down. This was partly because the bigger growers had no need for the buying agents, preferring to sell direct to the collection centres, and partly because the smaller growers thought the agents were acting only in the interests of the bigger growers, to which social group the agents themselves belonged. FORWARD had successfully introduced practical, vegetable growing techniques from which the poor were benefiting nutritionally but they were not earning the income that all had hoped for.

So what is the answer? FORWARD is a firm believer in the participatory approach to development so plans to involve the communities in working out a system that will be socially acceptable to all and yet still give smaller growers a chance to gain greater advantage from what is a growing market. The first step will be to encourage them to facilitate development of locally trusted buying agents from their own social class. Time will tell if this strategy will work. Horticulture can be a profitable business but it is by no means easy to guide the direction to which those profits will go. Nevertheless, Yam Bahadur Thapa is confident that, in time, all the people, of both higher and lower classes, will benefit. "We believe that they will be contributing to vegetable production in Nepal as a whole and that the economy, nutrition and condition of the life of the people will be improved as a result."