| AGROFORESTRY-TOWARDS PROSPERITY AND DIGNITY FOR LAXMI MAYA |
| Can anyone imagine that Laxmi Maya's life will be turned towards prosperity and dignity in a very short period of two years who had been lived with hardships and social distress over the years in a small Buteni village of Manahari VDC in Makawanpur? Yes, it happened here in Makawanpur. Married 27 years ago at the age of 14 with one of the energetic lovely intercaste boy Mr. Chandra Bahadur Praja without approval from her parents now lives with her 12 family members including five grand children. After marriage with Chandra Bahadur, an intercaste husband she engulfed into the vicious trap sometimes with social rejection and many times with poverty. In Tamang culture, intercaste marriage is not legally accepted and it turned out to be further apprehensive for her being her husband of 'Chepang (Praja)' community. She has yet no Gasa, a formal ritual event in Tamang culture accepting them as married couple from her parents. |
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| Buteni village in Manahari VDC is located in some 800 m altitude from mean sea level. It lies almost in one and half hours of walking distance to the northeast of Manahari bazar, on the way of east-west highway. She holds approximately 1.3 hectares of upland of which almost 50% (0.66 ha.) constitute the absolute sloping land called as Khoriya, with a slope gradient of 35 degree which is usually not recommended for growing cereal crops like maize and millet. However, people used to grow these crops in such lands year by year following slash and burn practices, a form of shifting cultivation widely applied in these areas. The productivity level of such Khoriya land measured by survey in terms of cash doesn't exceed Rs.4,000 to 5,000 per hectare per year (Manahari Development Institute (MDI), 2003). Because of such low productivity people though having lands on their ownership doesn't cover required foods to feed their families. Laxmi Maya's family is also not in exception from this plunge. |
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| Laxmi's family frequently faces food shortages whenever there is drought or floods caused by natural calamities or crop failures due to insect pests or diseases outbreaks. They won't have any other options despite of having debt for coping these disasters. |
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| Because of such frequent troubles her husband Chandra Bahadur proposed to sell this sloping Khoriya land just in Rs.1,500 few years back. It is interesting to note that all such of Khoriya lands in this area which were considered as wasteland had almost no values and were to be sold from Rs.1,500-2,000 per Bhitta (1 Bhitta = 10-20 kattha approx.). |
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| For many years this slope land (Khoriya) remained uncultivated due to shortage of labors and fertility except growing maize and blackgram in alternate years. She would have been able to harvest worth of Rs.605 by harvesting altogether 25 pathis of millet and maize by this land. This remained for many years until the entry of Rural Community Infrastructure Work (RCIW) programme in 2060. |
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| Two years ago when RCIW interventions initiated with focus of microproject activities particularly on agroforestry component in hill slopes, the life of Laxmi Maya Muktan changed towards opulence. She has planted altogether 2700 saplings including banana 850, pineapples 500 along with fodders like Ipil-ipil and Bakaino 500 and several sets of broomgrass, joint vetch etc. She says that we had a quarrel with my husband in the debate of selling this land only in Rs.1,500 (all 1 bigha slope land). Once she denied for selling and suggested him not to sell but keep up for her three sons in the future, her husband offended her and didn't talk months and months because of refusal of his proposal. |
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| MDI, a local NGO has been working as technical assistance (TA) partner for RCIW in Makawanpur with the financial support from Danish Internation Development Agency ( DANIDA). In addition it has another project Small Grants Program (SGP)/UNDP to supplement saplings required for agroforestry works. MDI planned agroforestry activities to be implemented in such hill slopes as part of the micro project component. Consulted with the communities to plant banana and pineapples along with fodder plants in such hill slopes resulted in fruitful decision over taking up the activities at farmer's initiatives. |
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