RICE ON THE RISE

Nicole Proano

How European foreign aid through innovations addresses Nepal's food insecurity.

In Nepal’s mountainous rural areas, rows of farming terraces picturesquely litter the hillsides, belonging to small families who often call 4 mud walls with a thatched roof a home. Many of these hillside and valley farms are subsistent and are still using 2000-year-old farming methods so it is hard to picture a future in which 20-foot spaceship looking tubes used for drying rice begin occupying these communities.

Despite the fact that more than 70 percent of Nepal’s population works in agriculture, this South Asian country remains plagued by food insecurity, a problem exacerbated by frequent natural disasters. Increasing rice production is significant in reducing poverty, so this inflatable-tubed technology from Germany has been sent over to do just that. Over half the developmental aid given to Nepal has been put towards project support, contributing to some new sustainable technologies that may prove to be a success.

A country in need

Life in rural Nepal is beautiful and hard. On average, the sun shines more than not and when driving through the Himalayan roads on the misty days, the clouds sit lazily on the sides of the hills. The agricultural technique in Nepal has not changed in over 2 millennia. Though small in stature, the Nepali farmers work hard for their living, most, hand planting and plowing each harvest. Only 61 percent of the rural population have access to electricity, which is unreliable at that, and many depend on traditional sources of energy, like firewood.

A lack of good governance, having only gained democracy in 2006, and scarce public global awareness of Nepal’s needs contributes to the country’s economic instability. Nepal ranks 144 out of 188 of the UN human development index.

Figure 1 - Figures taken from the Government of Nepal's Development Cooperation Report

Figure 2 - Part of the Annapurna mountain range in the central region of Nepal

In 2016, the EU was Nepal’s 8th largest donor of developmental aid, contributing almost €24M. Other European countries such as the UK and Switzerland have been even more generous donors with the former giving almost €73M and the latter, €30M. Apart from the official developmental aid which, in part, helps support Nepal’s agricultural sector, other innovative efforts are coming out of Europe aimed at helping farmers on a smaller scale.

Sustainable solutions

In collaboration with the German Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), a technology called the Solar Bubble Dryer (SBD) has been further developed for small scale Nepali farmers. A machine, which was originally developed for drying grapes and other high value crops such as fruits, and medicinal and aromatic plants, has been modified by Joachim Müller and his team at Hohenheim University in Germany for drying rice.

Farmers can lose around 10 to 30 percent of their largest rice harvest, which occurs in the spring, when they are not able to dry it properly. Martin Gummert of the IRRI, who retains close ties with Hohenheim since graduating from the university himself, approached Müller and asked for the dryer to be modified as a potential solution to address food insecurity in rural areas and perhaps make the hard physical task a little easier.

Traditionally, rice in Nepal is dried by laying out the harvest on a plastic sheet and rests exposed to the elements. It must also be frequently mixed for even drying. The SBD retains much of the conventional method of rice drying but addresses the matters that threaten post-harvest loss.

Figure 3 - Solar Bubble Dryer in Nepal - Photo taken from irri.org

Since the SBD dries rice faster than the traditional method, and as it prevents post-harvest losses, Nepali farmers are able to produce and sell more which both helps their economy and provides more local food sources.

Unlike other modern, large-scale methods of drying rice, this particular technology comes at a much lower cost. Müller said that “the big dryer facilities were too large and too expensive for the small-scale farmer. It was the idea of the IRRI to provide a solar dryer for Nepal’s small-scale farmers.” On January 22nd, an SBD was gifted, funded by the BMZ, to the Nepal Agriculture Research Council. This method also keeps away large, unwanted factories that would not only alter their farming process, but would also disturb and pollute the natural beauty of the countryside

Should the SBD become widespread in rural Nepal, it would surely be a new sight to see shiny plastic bubbles throughout the landscape. But the view will be welcomed by the Nepali’s if the project proves to be a success.

According to Christian Liedtke, head of the Renewable Energy for Rural Areas (RERA) program in Nepal, the use of the SBD in Nepal is still in its pilot phase. The next step is testing the device in two rural villages, training farmers and observing its efficacy. But Liedtke says he sees no reason why the implementation of the project should not be a success given Nepal’s needs and the devices prior success in some African countries. “After the pilot in these two villages, we’re getting a report and that report will, then, say what the potential is of that technology in Nepal. But there is no reason to think that the potential wouldn’t be there.”

Before the harvest

While the SBD aims to tackle post-harvest losses, there is still the problem of producing adequate quantities of rice, prior to the harvest. Near Pokhara, Nepal’s second largest city after Kathmandu, the rice harvests rely mainly on rainfall which accounts for 90 percent of the crops water supply. In 2006, the eastern and central regions of Nepal were severely affected by a drought that disturbed early crop growth and reduced rice by around 20 percent in both areas. With changing rainfall patterns, threats of disrupted water sources by physical shifts within the landscape and with more frequent flooding, irrigation control is an effective method of providing more food security within the country, according to studies.

“In Nepal, most of the area is not irrigated,” Liedtke says. “Through more irrigation of the fields you can also bring in a second or third harvest, depending on what you harvest.” RERA has been looking at ways to help produce larger yields through the use of irrigations systems, with rice but also with other products. RERA supports a private company that sells solar water pumps to farmers by subsidizing 30 percent of the costs. The rest of the is usually covered by a farmer’s bank loan.

Why rice?

Dal Bhat is a staple meal in the Nepali diet that always consists of rice and lentils. It is a meal so popular it has its own catch phrase – ‘Dal Bhat gives power, 24 hour,’ and can be seen written on t-shirts, sold in tourist stores but are also proudly worn by the locals. Rice supplies 40 percent of the Nepalese’s calorie intake and can often be found growing on these little rural farms, such as the ones described above, especially in lower altitudes. Although this meal is prepared with low-cost ingredients, getting access to alternative food sources can be difficult far up in the hills. And if one’s crops fail on a subsistent farm, they run the risk of going hungry. A problem made more serious when considering that 81 percent of the Nepalese live in rural areas.

Agriculture is Nepal’s largest sector and accounts for one third of the country’s GDP with rice being one of its three main crops. However, since the 1980’s, rice has turned from a major export to an increasingly imported commodity as population growth has outstripped rice production. Although Nepal is able to import cheap rice from India, studies have shown that an increase in a country’s own rice production can address some of its food insecurity problems.

Figure 4 - A Traditional Nepali meal, Dal Bhat. Dal literally translates to lentil soup, and Bhat means boiled rice.

Women have become the predominant workers within Nepali agriculture, as the men and young folk are leaving the rural areas in search of better opportunities in the nearby cities or further overseas. As women are left alone to tend to their families, care for livestock and, recently, manage the farming, the agricultural sector is left underperforming. Despite being an agriculture dominant country, approximately 15 percent of the population still suffers from inadequacy of food, with female‐headed households and subsistence farmers as the most food insecure.

Rural Nepali women play a vital role in agriculture that sustains nearly 80 percent of the population.

Figure 5 - Rice farming terraces. As men are leaving the countryside, seeking better financial opportunities for their families, the role of caring for the farm is increasingly falling upon women. Photo from weadapt.org.

What problems remain?

The SBD is large enough that farming communities would be able to share one throughout a harvesting period, with the capacity of drying up to 1 and a half tonnes of rice. Still, the cost of the instrument is too costly for the average farmer, even when shared by a community, coming in at around €1600 before adding in the transportation and customs costs, according to the CEO of Grainpro, Tom De Bruin. Acquiring loans from the banks in Nepal is difficult in the early stages of the technology’s use – surety of its payoff won’t be proven for a while.

And it is too early to tell whether the government of Nepal will be subsidizing these devices. But in the future, funding derived from developmental aid for projects such as these, can be included in support programs.

Unfortunately, some of the country’s problems cannot be predicted or prevented. Nepal’s geographical location, sandwiched between India to its south and China to the North, is located on tectonic plates making it highly susceptible to natural disasters. This April marks three years since the Gorkha earthquake which devastated many farmers and put some 3.5M in need of food assistance. The earthquake revealed many of the impending risks future natural disasters may cause.

Rural farms face the possibilities of landslides that damage farmlands, microbes from animal carcasses polluting water and spreading diseases to their livestock and disrupted water sources from changed geological systems. Roads that lead to alternative food supplies were disrupted and the disasters are only expected to increase as climate change persists.

Looking into the future, we must plan to prevent what is within our power. In events which uncontrollably cause harm, we can seek to mitigate the disaster, looking towards cutting-edge solutions. The way in which Liedtke says RERA seeks to address some problems using developmental aid, looks like a good way forward, “In terms of food security, we always look at agriculture with the cross-cutting topic of energy.”