I read an article this morning by Susil Khanal titled “Who captures the value between farm gate and plate?”
This article is written by a young person who is trying to solve the problems he identified in the agriculture economics of Nepal. It seems the primary problem he discovered through his research, and his first hand experience, is that the marketing of agricultural products by wholesalers typically creates a 20% loss during the transition from farm to consumer. The solution currently in practice to reduce this shrinkage is for farmers to try to produce 20% more, but that solution in actual application only results in more loss. Khanal suggests the focus should be on reducing the amount of loss that occurs while the product is being held by the whole sellers.
It seems like a very practical and workable solution, but what I find most fascinating is how this reaffirms something I witnessed firsthand when I traveled to Nepal. What I saw was that the traditional village life was not appealing to young people anymore, so the farming villages I visited were mostly abandoned except for the elderly left there to farm and tend to the land by themselves. Most of these elderly farmers were no longer able to farm enough to produce a living. Instead, what I saw, was farmers who could only produce enough for themselves and their village with a little left for bartering for additional goods they may need from outside the village.
Instead of farming along side the elderly, or even replacing them, the young people of these villages moved to the major cities of Nepal to pursue dreams of living a more modern and urban life. Reading Khanal’s ideas is interesting to me because I wonder who he envisions he is speaking too? Are their other young people farming in the villages isolated across the Himalayas now, or is this the findings of a young man who left his village farm behind and is trying to rectify a future in which he feels he is serving his legacy as the descendant of farmers without having to suffer the isolation of a predetermined life in a village isolated from modernity?
Don’t get me wrong here. I am not condemning Khanal for not choosing to stay in the village on the farm. Most of these villages at their most thriving had a few dozen people in them. It is an extreme form of tribal rural existence to be born in a Himalayan village in Nepal, and I do not begrudge those who were drawn to the appeal of modern life and academia. I just think this all points to a truth that is paralleled on both American farms and Nepalese farms: parents that farm are less likely to see their kids become farmers and carry on the family business.
Part of this trend probably results from the fact that farming is not considered a lucrative business. It is physically hard, fraught with unpredictability, and is usually plagued by constant fiscal insecurity or excessive debt. Farming is a hard life, and kids that grow up in it feel that difficulty regardless of whether they see the actual business side of it or not. Young people, and middle age people like myself, that come to farming because of idealism and passion for the process.
I think the real obstacle to farming’s generational continuance is that it just doesn’t make sense how it can be so necessary to the survival of a society and yet be relegated to the afterthoughts of importance by that same society. Like most of the critically necessary job fields I have worked in, there is a constant ask for personal sacrifice in service to the community for many necessarily difficult jobs in our society, but there is little more than lip service offered in the returned support for those who choose to answer the call. All the “likes” and the “At-a-Boys” don’t pay the bills or give back the time sacrificed to fulfill the needs of the role. Khanal is right that change is necessary, but I think the sustainability in the future of farming needs to begin with the retiring of the unsustainable practices, and a renewed prioritizing of fresh food production as a primary pursuit in modern society rather than an incidental afterthought.
**The featured photo with this posting was taken by me years ago in the village of Padang in Nepal where I shared an afternoon of conversation and raksi with the three remaining elderly farmers of two neighboring villages.**
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