Local Farmers Pursuing Disaster and Climate Resilient Practices

Suku Maya Gurung, a 36 year old mother, of two children (one son and a daughter) from Nawalpur was struggling to sustain her living after her husband passed away 6 years ago. She is dependent on subsistence agricultural farming for living which is barely sufficient to feed themselves for not more than 3 months. Besides, that she also work as off-farm labor if any opportunity comes on her way and it helps her to fulfill their daily basic needs.

Suku Maya with the village farmers wait for their turns, it takes more than a day to irrigate their land – or else the only option is to be reliant on rainwater. The problem related to scarcity of water as well as hard agriculture land surfaces made it even more difficult for her to plough and harvest. In addition to this absence of capable members in the family made it worst.

“Listening to news and stories in radio program on community practices on producing sufficient and varieties of agriculture produce within similar challenges gave me a hope in the darkness. But again lack of resources and technical support for doing so made me dishearten.”

While Suku Maya had come to expect the worst before the monsoon in this year, fortunately this time she was able to easily produce varieties of creeper vegetables in dry season after the agriculture inputs support received from Building Resilience of Urban Community in Nepal project. She now says “Understanding climate smart agriculture techniques (mulching) has helped to minimize the water dependency and has also reduced my workload”. She has already sold around 140 kg of creeper vegetables. She further shares that “I feel delighted and am thankful to Caritas family for making my families’ hope alive”.