Back on the Farm

For 24-year-old Dipesh Tamang, strawberries are his life. Dipesh, a resident of Okharpauwa VDC of Nuwakot district, is a micro-entrepreneur who has been involved in farming strawberries ever since he was a teenager.

“The strawberry business was flourishing,” he said. “It had improved our standard of living three-to-four fold.”

So it was particularly hard on him when a devastating earthquake struck the country on April 25, destroying his harvest. In the ensuing aftershocks, Dipesh lost millions worth of fruit as he was unable to visit his fields to take care of his runners.

Similarly, Sukumaya Tamang, 52, from Hillevite in Kakani, lost more than 10 kilograms of strawberries that were being nurtured for cultivation in the quake.

“I was plucking strawberries leaves when the earth began to shake,” she recalled. “Even now, when I am on the field, I am often haunted.”

Five months on, 160 micro entrepreneurs like Dipesh and Sukumaya are now looking to restart their plantations. Through the Rapid Enterprise and Livelihoods Recovery Project (RELRP), an early recovery project of UNDP’s with support from the Australian government, each micro entrepreneur received 1,500 strawberry runners to help revive their enterprise. Once harvesting begins, each micro entrepreneur is expected to produce an average of 500-750 kilograms of strawberries, helping them restore livelihoods destroyed by the earthquake.

“By early next year, I hope I will be able to recoup my losses,” said Sukumaya. Dipesh shared a similar sentiment. “We thought we might never revive our business, but with support from RELRP, we are slowly recovering,” he said.

RELRP is UNDP’s early recovery project to support 12,059 micro entrepreneurs created by the Micro Enterprise Development Programme (MEDEP) and Micro Enterprise Development for Poverty Alleviation (MEDPA) in seven districts hit hard by the recent earthquake. The hundred and sixty micro entrepreneurs supported by RELRP are among the 500 entrepreneurs who were instrumental in promoting Kakani and Okharpauwa VDCs of Nuwakot as Nepal’s first commercial strawberry production hub.

Strawberry farmers who lost their livelihoods in the April earthquake are now looking to recover their harvests with support from UNDP’s recovery project funded by Australia.