Position Title
MS Student
- International Agricultural Development
Project
Barriers and opportunities for manure management in Nepal
My research project explores how farmers are adapting their soil management strategies, and particularly their management of livestock manures for use in the cropping systems. I visited a number of villages in Gurbhakot Municipality, in Surkhet district of Western Nepal, to conduct in-depth interviews and focus groups with farmers. The stories they tell are complex, and each farm is a little different. I first became interested in Nepali farming systems when I lived and worked alongside a rural community in the mid-hills region of Nepal as a Peace Corps Volunteer from 2017-2019, so this has been an amazing opportunity to explore some of my questions that were seeded at that time.
In recent years, Nepal’s agricultural communities have been changing profoundly. The forces of globalization and out-migration have resulted in simultaneous labor scarcity and some new financial flexibility as family members send money home from the city or abroad, and climate change produces additional challenges. The farmers I interviewed report that, as rural population declines and labor becomes scarce, it is becoming more challenging to keep livestock and do the work needed to get farmyard manure (FYM) to crop fields. Many describe a lack of FYM in recent years, which they associate with declining crop productivity. Farmers are responding to the challenge in different ways, many by substituting FYM with inorganic fertilizers, though it can be difficult for farmers to afford sufficient quantities of those inputs, and those purchased fertilizers do not provide all the benefits of FYM.
Farmers have been encouraged to adopt a package of “improved” manure management practices that includes storing manure in a pit (rather than a pile), covering the pile, turning the FYM, and incorporating FYM quickly after it is transported to the field. Some of those concepts are new to many of the farmers, some of them are not; on the whole, the improved management practices are adopted unevenly across the farms studied. These changes to the rural landscape are not impacting all farmers equally, and there are intersectional factors – farmer gender and education level, family income, access to resources, and others – that play a role in shaping how farmers are adapting and innovating. By identifying these barriers and opportunities, working with CIMMYT and local government, this research may shape local policy and agricultural extension to help farmers build more resilient farms and livelihoods in the midst of ongoing change.
Background
Originally hailing from the small coastal town of Rockport, MA, Heather is passionate about creating a just and resilient global food system that serves farmers, marginalized communities, and the land. She hopes to use her IAD degree to expand and elevate this work.
Heather has 10 years of diverse experience in sustainable agriculture and community development in the US and abroad. After completing her BA in Anthropology and Human Rights from the University of Chicago in 2014, she sought out opportunities to dig deep into the hands-on work of community-based agriculture, leading her to an Americorps position at a farm-to-school program in Vermont and a farm apprenticeship at Pie Ranch in Pescadero, CA. Her interest in international agriculture and cross-cultural collaboration brought her to the US Peace Corps in Nepal, where she served in a program focused on nutrition-sensitive agriculture and soil conservation. She worked with local farmers to expand production of crops that provide both nutrition security and economic opportunity to small farms. In the years since, she has spent her time in the Sacramento region continuing to dive deep into sustainable agricultural practices on farms of all sizes, including Full Belly Farm in the Capay Valley. In 2021, she pivoted towards the urban agriculture space, working with the Yolo County-based Center for Land-Based Learning to manage a network of small urban farms and launch a Mobile Farmers Market program focused on connecting low-income communities to fresh, local, culturally relevant produce.