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Homeward Bound. Milk production reaches many corners of the community. These ponies in the mountainous district of Illam are returning home after their daily trip delivering milk to a chilling centre. They carry goods like rice, beans and fertiliser back to their communities. |
One of the benefits of living away from family in a strange
city is the possession of more spare time. This, over the past few decades,
with my hectic work and family life, has not always been abundant. Making use of
this new found gift I have done a bit of reading. Last night I finished
the final few pages of John Stewart Collis’s book ‘The Worm Forgives the
Plough’, a thoroughly entertaining read, which reminded me of my own early
farming experiences based in West Dorset. There is a second book, ‘Down to
Earth’, which looks to be a similarly pleasing volume, that starts with the following
quote. John de Dondis, a fourteenth century sage, who after declaring that he
was disinclined to attach too much importance to wholly explicable
relationships, added:
“I have learnt from
long experience that there is nothing that is not marvellous and that the saying
of Aristotle is true – that in every natural phenomenon there is something
wonderful, nay, in truth many wonders. We are born and placed among wonders and
surrounded by them, so that to whatever object the eye first turns, the same is
wonderful and full of wonders, if only we will examine it for a while”
Working with animals, and farming them, has for me been a
wonderful experience. I have been fascinated by what their inner workings. how
they differ from us, and ways to make their lives as tolerable as possible and
yet earn a living by working alongside them.
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Like this farmer on the Tarai, whole derives great joy from rearing her stock, there are many small holders interested in finding out more about the workings of their animals and how they can farm them better. |
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A farmer with her Zebu cross Jersey says 'namaste'. |
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More tethered cattle get a drink. Many of the less exotic breeds like Jersey and Holstein crosses, which are becoming more popular, like a maximum temperature of 21-25c. Heat stress and the resulting yield drop is common. The government has a breed improvement programme focused on Jersey and Holstein, but how to minimize heat stress appears nowhere in a training program. |
What may you ask has all this to do with life in Nepal? Well
the answer is “a great deal”. That interest or even “wonder” that I experience
when I see farmed animals (and also the ones not caught up in domesticity) has enabled
me to have a “passion” and as a volunteer that is what motivates and drives me on.
Another passion is to help other farmers to understand their animals and their
needs in a way that will benefit not only the livestock but the lives of the
farmers as well.
We will leave Nepal in just a few short months and I’m glad
to say that the new team leader, Krishna Paudel, charged with carrying on the
work I have been privileged to be involved with, also possesses a passion and a
vision. He is a vet and not only understands the inner machinations of these
ruminants but also is fascinated by creating simple but effective ways of
training farmers. His vision is that our
work with cows, if the pilot schemes should prove successful, will lead to
lower costs and greater output, combined with improved milk quality, less
environmental impact and potentially could bring with a significant positive change to the lives of these small farmers.
Let us turn now to the unlikely bedfellows of the England rugby
team and Napali dairy farmers. Those who know me are well aware that I also
have a keen interest in rugby union. This stems from my school days, university
and has run on ever since. It’s been a sport that, for many years, when work
was very taxing became something of a safe haven, a baffle against the attrition
of business. Rugby has left me with many fond memories of my wife, daughters
and sons also sharing in the fun.
The England rugby team has in some ways arrived at the same crossroads
as the Nepali dairy farmers’ industry. England have appointed a new coach, Eddie
Jones, whom nobody will deny possesses a vision and a great deal of passion to
achieve the aim of creating a winning team. He has selected a group of
like minded coaches who are striving to remove the conservatism that has dogged
England rugby’s performances over the last decade. This coaching cohort are
achieving success by improving awareness, building knowledge, creating team
spirit and above all by building confidence and an attitude that says “it is OK
to try something new and break away from what has gone before”
In Krishna we have found our passionate, knowledgeable coach
who will strive to build better performances in Nepal’s dairy farmers. But who
will be those other coaches filled with zeal, that will help him guide the farming
community to better performance? We believe that many will be farmers, already
effective in what they do, who we can be transformed into trainers. They are superbly
positioned within their communities to spread new skills to fellow farmers with
the aim of building the confidence needed to change deeply ingrained cultural
practises. Being so close to their mentees they will be able to monitor the
effectiveness of their training methods and reinforce the important messages
when necessary.
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Some may remember Balkumar who took over one of my workshops, back in 2014. I thought he was going to challenge all I had said but instead he reinforced my messages. He was totally passionate about his farming and sharing his knowledge. Our challenge to find more like him to help train our 7000 target farmers. |
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Boring to some, fascinating to Balkumar......a pile of compost. |
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His fascination extended to soil health..... |
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.......and his newly planted lemon trees |
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.......his Bees ( the box in front of him and his wife is a home made hive). |
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......and with the support of his whole family, he was able to exploit the wonder he saw in everything to create a fully integrated farm. Goats, buffalo, fish, bees, tomatoes and lemon trees. |
However, if all this is going to lead to longer lasting and
sustainable improvement in performance we need to stimulate some passion within
the government services that currently provide training to the farming
industry. The first glimmer of interest is already appearing on our radar
screen. The top ministry man wants to be involved. We will need to gauge the
reasons for his motivation and hope that we find “passion” and “wonder”. Then hopefully he will find more amongst his
departmental team that are similarly motivated to feed the desire for change
that has started to emerge from farmers nationwide.