Nepal’s Mountainous North Nears Starvation

UPPER DOLPA, NEPAL — For three years now, the Nepali government hasn’t delivered rice to sections of Upper Dolpa, a district that borders China. As a result, people here walk four to nine days to buy rice at market, at prices most can’t afford.

Rice at market costs 150 Nepali rupees per kilogram (0.50 United States dollar per pound) — up to 2.5 times what it had cost when rice was delivered to their area, at 58 to 87 rupees per kilogram (20 cents to 29 cents per pound).

But getting rice to Upper Dolpa is incredibly difficult.

“For us or a contractor to transport rice, we have to use hinnies or yaks. Or we must use helicopters,” which only come every few years, says Dorje Gurung, a local resident. “We have lost hope that the government is going to transport the food items.”

The government signs a contract each year with a company to transport food to Upper Dolpa. Ideally, rice should be distributed in the area. But for several reasons, including lack of transportation in Upper Dolpa, the contractor, despite having a contract in place, refuses to make the delivery. However, the “people of Upper Dolpa will get food this time. Food will reach Dolpa before the start of the snowy season [December-January],” says Bishnu Ghimire, the Dolpa office chief of Food Management and Trading Co., a government-owned company that handles the contracts as part of its work to purchase food and deliver it to remote districts of the country.

But Gurung is skeptical.

Chandani Kathayat, GPJ Nepal

Bags of rice are fortified and stored at a Food Management and Trading Co. warehouse in Birendranagar.

“Even if it arrives, it won’t be enough for even a month,” he says.

This is a widespread problem across Karnali province in the mountainous and remote Himalayan district. So many people have left this region for cities and jobs abroad that farms which could otherwise help feed them, lay fallow.

Karnali is the largest of Nepal’s provinces at roughly 30,000 square kilometers (11,583 square miles) — about 21% of the country’s total area. But it has the smallest population at 1.6 million people. The Upper Dolpa area is home to about 42,700 people, according to 2021 census figures.

It’s a rugged region with roads that are often impassable due to landslides and poor conditions in general. The 232-kilometer (144-mile) Karnali Highway is often in such poor shape that it’s called the “death road.” On average, 100 people die while traveling on the road every year, according to official statistics.

Despite the challenges of getting to and from the Upper Dolpa region — and despite the region’s agricultural potential — over a quarter of its arable land lay barren in 2020. In response, the government launched a program promising funds, seeds and other support to increase agricultural productivity. They aimed to create thousands of new jobs in the process, hoping to attract people who had left for cities back to the region. But today, even more arable land — 30% — is unused, according to a report from the provincial Ministry of Land Management, Agriculture and Cooperatives.

A big part of the problem is that there still aren’t enough people left in the region to make the program successful, as many agricultural laborers have migrated to urban centers, says Ramesh Khadka, the information officer at the ministry.

Farming in the alpine conditions that characterize this region requires more time and is more expensive than in other regions. “They have been earning their livelihood through other means,” says Dhan Bahadur Kathayat, the spokesperson and agriculture expansion officer at the ministry.

Karnali province has agricultural potential. Nine different grains and rice varieties are grown here, including millet, barley and Jumli Marshi rice. Still, six of 10 districts rely on imported food, Kathayat says.

Chandani Kathayat, GPJ Nepal

Urmila Budhathoki, center, talks to other mothers at the nutritional rehabilitation center in Birendranagar, where their children are fed nutritious food.

Data shows that Karnali citizens need 344,324 metric tons (379,552 US tons) of food. The province is short of that figure by 23,434 tons (25,831 US tons).

And people are hungry. More than one-third are affected by dwarfism, which can be caused by malnutrition in gestation or during childhood. Forty percent of children have anemia. A 2019 study by the World Food Programme and the Nepali government found that about a quarter of households don’t have enough food — and only 8% of homes consume what they need. Starvation is an acute danger.

Navaraj KC, a local pediatrician, says that malnutrition rates would decline if the Karnali region produced the food it’s capable of growing.

“The nutritional content of food produced in Karnali cannot be produced elsewhere in Nepal,” he says. “If we can conserve those grains and increase production, then we can be self-reliant and can produce healthy manpower for the future.”

Nepal became a federal democratic republic in 2015, divided into seven provinces. Several governments since then brought forth many ambitious plans for improving agricultural output in Karnali province. There have been pushes toward organic farming, youth agricultural programs, grants, plot unification schemes, loan programs and more, says Binod Kumar Shah, the minister for Land Management, Agriculture and Cooperatives.

Now, the government is moving toward penalties: People who keep their land barren will be charged a higher tax. Farmable land is returning to forest, says agricultural expert Lilaram Paudel, who has experience working in Karnali.

“We need to think how we can create income from that [the forests]. For instance, by earning from herbs,” he says.

Chandani Kathayat, GPJ Nepal

Maize was once sown on this land in Birendranagar under a government program that started in 2020 to promote agriculture in Karnali province. Today, the land lies barren. Plans now call for construction of a provincial government building on the spot.

Meanwhile, deliveries of rice from other regions remain slow. Madhav Mishra, the Food Management and Trading Co. office chief for Birendranagar, says more than 105,000 quintal (11,574 US tons) of food has been dispensed all over the province, and that there won’t be a shortage this year.

But residents like Dil Kumari Dhimal don’t think that’s true. The worst shortages happen during festival seasons, when rice is in high demand. Two major festivals, Dashain and Tihar, take place in October and November.

In past years, she says, she’s left the food depot empty-handed and was forced to buy rice from the local market at unaffordable prices. The situation has been the same so far this year.