Welcome to our women and gender development discussion series.
My Name is Maria Elisa Christie. I'm director of
women and gender in international development at the Center for
International Research, Education and Development. Welcome to
our Special Women's Month event. We have the discussion
Series monthly, but this is a special one.
It's part of the 2017-2018 women and minority artists
and scholars lecture series and the Principles of Community Week
, which were celebrating this week at Virginia Tech.
We're happy you all could join us, including those of
you [inaudible]. So I'd like to start
by thanking our sponsors for bringing our special guests today
in outreach and international affairs, the
Department of Geography, Women and Gender Studies. And
again, the women of minority artists and scholars lecture
series. So I'd like to begin today by acknowledging
that this event is being held on the traditional lands
of the Tutelo/Monacan people who are the original custodians
of the land where Virginia Tech is built.
We have a sign up sheet on two clipboards is
going around or will be going around. Please do
sign up, and also you have a place there
to let us know if you wanna be on the
listserv, where you will receive the announcements of
future discussion series. The full calendar and any updates
is on our website, which
Though I'm not gonna read out the
website. This discussion or this presentation will last approximately
40 minutes, and then we'll have plenty of time
for discussion and questions and answers, which we really
encourage you to participate in. So now let me
introduce our speaker. Dr Basundhara Bhattarai.
She's an internationally recognized specialist on gender and development
She considers gender justice across a range of international
development sectors. What you get when you turn the
microphone on. All right,
so across various international development sectors, including natural resource
management, rural livelihood, urban poverty, agriculture
and food security, disaster risk reduction, water security,
resilience building, smaller community based
enterprises, infrastructure development and health and develop her gender
work spans, research, development, practice, training
program monitoring and evaluation, policy analysis and women's
empowerment. She served as a specialist
and consultant for a number of international organizations and national
organizations in Australia for various projects on climate change,
urbanization and water security in India and Nepal. Dr.
Basundhara Bhattarai is a senior gender development
consultant at the Institute for Studies and Development Worldwide,
based in Sydney, Australia. She actively is contributing
to the University of Queensland Professional training
program on gender development and humanitarian assistance. In addition
, she coordinates the Himalayan Field School on Environment,
Culture and Society, which I encourage you all to
go spend three weeks in Nepal this summer, school
students in particular, while she serves as a gender specialist
at ICIMOD, the International Center for Integrated Mountain
Development. She recently completed a major assignment for the
Food and Agriculture Organization at the United Nations on a
global review of the forestry sectors, using the lens
of two different sustainable development goals. Fifth one on
gender and the second one on food security. And
she's very sought after as a counselor on gender based
domestic violence amongst Asian spread diaspora communities in
Australia. Please welcome Dr Basundhara Bhattarai. Thank you
so much. Thank you so much, Maria Elisa
, for your very nice introduction.
Yeah, I feel so honored to be
here in front, of you in such a setting
on I'm so proud To, stand in front of
you. Like I think I can't see
any chair empty. That's very encouraging. You have
given me right from the beginning. Thank you so
much. I would like to thank everyone here in
the university. Maria Elisas department, everyone on And
also my like in the police colleagues. We had
a very good meeting last night and everyone have I'm
having very special meeting. I think that is very
special for me on.
Okay. Without being delayed. Um, I would
like to start. If you can't hear me,
just please do not hesitate to raise and high.
I can't hear then yes, I want to be
loud as possible. Can you hear in the background
? Okay, good. So I think you all
are familiar with the title. In the next 40
minutes, I'm going to talk about, bring you in
the Nepal Himalayas. I'll be talking stories on all
yes, good practices and practices to improve because I'm
talking about gender. So I'll be talking on that
aspect, I think, And then we'll have plenty
of time to discuss because, as you see,
this is a discussion series. And I want to
have more time to interact with you later. Um
, so these are the questions I tried to address
in this, uh, presentation today. So I
think more than anything, I myself, how I've
grown up, what motivated me to this result is
so important. Yes. I
would like to bring you to the context social context
in Nepali context. I think that it's a much
more similar with some other countries contracts in Asia on
how generation is changing. Um, yes. Maybe
later on you can ask why we need to talk
about gender as well. That's a very important one.
Then, what theoretical and methodological strategies I'm
using? Yes. In terms of theory, maybe
I will keep place. But I would like to
talk more on these stories because I see the diversity
in the audience. So, yes, everything on
political might be harder for some. Then, um
, what are the most important finding I'm bringing in
on, then talking about climate, talking about every biodiversity
on gender based power relation. Just, uh,
make it easier for you. Three main keywords
like I will be talking about climate and adaptation processes
. Then talking about gender equality. I'm agro biodiversity
. Okay, then. Yes. What message
can bring to the policy members and to the larger
audience. So what drives me for this results?
Why did I do that? Why didn't I
do different topics? I think the question
here is I was not a fresh graduate when I
was carrying out these results. I had more than
10 years experience in this area. So when I
had a continuous type of like issues, I'm coming
up, I'm confronting. And then I asked myself
So I have done a lot of working in the
field in gender equality in agro biodiversity. Today I'm
talking more on agro biodiversity. But I'm working on
diversity as as Maria Eliza mentioned. Then I
say so. Why it is continuing. Why some
of the practices reinforcing gender inequality? And then
myself. I'm grown up in Nepal in the mountain
, in a remote area. So I know what
it means and then.
Then I feel some of them when I become a
resourcer. Now I'm not that disempowered. I'm much more
empowered. But I can see the back link, my
things and the similar scenarios When I talked back
And then when I was trying to choose this
area of research, Then I see I found very
little of them. They talk about in this area
. They really see the link between the inequality climate
adaptation and agro biodiversity. So to
make you a bit easier. Agrobiodiversity.
Agrobiodiversity is not only the agricultural diversity I'm
bringing here - now, much better? - from a systems thinking approach
I want to see the system. If you
go to the Nepal Himalayas or similar locations agriculture
, growing crops. It has so many connections to
other aspect, like forestry, livestock, market and
everything. So when I talk about agrobiodiversity,
agricultural cropping system, I know then that has a
big connection, that has a very intrinsic connection with
other aspects, like forestry. So I
took my my approach in that way so I
could cover a little bit larger thing. And then
I think I don't want to talk, what is
gender? I think you all know. Then what
is Adaptation? I'm taking this from social science perspective
. I know what is adaptation in natural science
and physical science. But if you think about like
social science, then I think it is, uh
, the policies and practices how they are sending us
for the changes in climate. Are we talking more
about other changes as well later. And then
Adaptive capacity. There is a lot more theoretical
literature about this.
. Uh, the important thing they tell us is
if - adaptive capacity - if you have a good adaptive
capacity, then your system is going to be more
resilient. I think I will just turn this up
to here. Okay. In the beginning,
I say something about climate and then now
I'm talking about socioeconomic conditions, context.
What is the context in which I carried out my
research? You can clearly see here, I think
, like in many other developing countries, increased feminization
Of agriculture and agrobiodiversity is really becoming
a common practice, a common phenomenon. If
you see here, because of that, or not before that..
What did it mean? Feminization of bioagrodiversity,
a lot of men, they're out migrated.
You can see here more than 60% of the
women they are engaged in agriculture, and then every year
Nepal has more women headed households. That
is an increasing trend. And then yes, I already
just mentioned there is a high rate of men's out
migration and in return, nearly one third of the
GDP comes from remittance in Nepal. I
think you can have a good sense of
that. Another, I'd say
frustration before I started my research. so there are
very really good policies in place, and then good organizations,
development organizations that are working on it. But it's
still, gender equality is an issue. It's a problem,
has been a problem you can see in terms of
policy on in every state policies, Nepal has to
have 30% women in all political and other decision making
processes. And then, if you go down to
the community in forestry and agricultural groups, community groups
, they have to have 50% women, including in
leadership positions, so I know it is difficult to
attend and it is very achieve. Very difficult,
To measure because they're more qualitative. If
you see the number only than, um,
it's very hard to judge whether we're having kind of,
genuine, kind of participation or involvement. So, yes
, one of the big criticisms, is
our development interventions, our policy interventions,
they have focused on numbers. Okay, If we have 50%
women in the committee, then okay, we are
done. That is not the case. That is
a precondition. Yeah, someone has to be there
to influence. But that is not the last thing
. Okay? Even more. Just for 20 years
, we're having unstable political condition. Just last year
, we have a local election, local government election,
In 20 years. You can imagine how unstable
it was there. Then all together, almost two thirds
of the labor force, they're engaged in agriculture.
But GDP is only one third. You can imagine
it here. And then, majority of the farmers,
they're very small. They have an average,
I think, seven hectares or something less than
7 hectares. Such a small land. And
in terms of gender, division off labor is very
distinct. You can distinguish right away. Not
only that, in terms off payment, there is also,
I would say, not distinct discrimination because women got
low payment. And, beyond gender, beyond yes, women
and men, there are a lot more other social
hierarchy based on caste. Yeah, of course.
The economic thing comes in and then ethnicity. I
think it's important to talk with you
here. So what kind of socio-economic livelihood system
does Nepal have? You can see here other elements,
and agriculture is so much connected with other elements
you can see here if there is one
farmer and then it has a connection relation with,
Of course, the remittance thing, and the market,
and more importantly and traditionally, livestock is
a major component not only for income also for family
diet, and many things on, more importantly to
agriculture in the form of farm menu. So if
you don't have livestock, then it's very hard
to get farm manure and yeah on, then to
grow your crops. And then forest grazing land because
from forest, you get fuel load. It's a
primary cooking energy. Even today in Nepal, many
of the villages. And then foods and medicine is still
People are using so many medicinal hops
in their everyday life. And then for leaf
litter and so many other things. I'll leave this
thing here maybe. Okay, let me talk a
little bit about climatic conditions. So as you see
Himalaya, it's a very fragile, um kind of
condition, geographical condition. And, when I analyze
some of the data, I think some 20 years,
for some 20 years, yes, you can see
the change. You don't have like static line,
straight line. You have variations in rainfall
patterns. And why I'm bringing in the rainfall thing is,
here rainfall is so important in Nepali context for
the irrigation of land and everything. If you don't
have rainfall, if you don't have, um, rainfall
in time...yeah, it makes a big difference.
Um, yes. And then another important thing
is only 28% of the arable land in Nepal
has irrigation facility and all others they have to
rely on, monsoons. Yes, and
then I'll be talking a little bit on theoretical
thing. Yes, I would like to display both
of them here. In this results, I combined
both social-ecological systems and feminist political ecology.
Just to be in brief - there are
some theoretical assumptions I just want to spell out.
Enhanced ecological diversity. So that enhanced social resilience means
gender equality here. And then there is always a
cross scale interactions between the elements, so that makes
the system more resilient. Then if you talk
about diminished political ecology, okay, If there is
increased access to knowledge, increase access to and
control over resources and voice, then you can assume
there's some level of gender equality. Okay, just
for the overview, this is a tiny map
off Nepal on the bottom, and then we can
see the highlighted red area is my research site.
I think these results is not only, um, okay,
I went to the field and collected data and
Ran a focus group discussion and all,
but it is also the consolidation off my long years
of work in research and other development practices that has
really given me the crux of the things I'm going
to talk about today. So just to summarize, I
think most of them I have already told you,
and in terms off sampling strategy, I just
use, um, purposive and snowballing. That
way I could select the right category of participants.
Otherwise, if I go to the village, and
talk to someone, okay, just there, like
, available every time on, then it's easy for
me to go and approach. That's not - I'm taking
it a little bit differently. Another important
aspect, Um, I just tried to take into
account is observe, as most as possible, the
informal places. So if you visit the informal places
and talk to the people there, then you'll find
yes, complete, sometimes completely different information than you
have got in the formal setting. I think that's
much more important. I would emphasize that. And them
, um, So how did I select my resource
respondents? I think it's you may ask -your
study is about gender. Then why do you need to
bother to have all these categories. I think there
is a whole logic behind. Yes, of course
it is gender. on. And the society
is differentiated by different class groups, caste s
and ethnicity, very much. And then household income on
land holding size. Because why is that important is
based on this category agricultural management or agrobiodiversity
management reforms. So I need to capture all those aspects.
That's why um yes, I included them and
then applied in my research as well, then,
in terms of occupation as well. Some off the
households are engaged in non-farm activities and then
forestry activities on yes, of course, part
of the family income is from Remittance. I
think there is a whole range of differences.
What I would like to emphasize here. Okay.
Just going straight away in the community on results.
So I know in 40 minutes I may not be
able to tell everything I wanted to, so I
need to have some kind of, like timing.
I'm certain some of them then in terms of results,
what I'm going to talk is yes, my
research. So is that okay? There are five
major drivers of changing agrobiodiversity or
agrobiodiversity management practices. You can see it
comes from climate, I guess. Longer period of
dry seasons. People don't have monsoon rains in time
all the time. Some year they got it in
time. Some years they don't. Then, yes,
there is much more uncertainty and then
, um then they have to, like, change
their timing and patterns of crops. It
depends on the patterns of precipitation. And then,
yes. I was talking about the Remittance and male
out migration here in the farm. So as a
result of that they have a shortage of farm labor,
they don't have male labor, uh, to work
On the farm. I already told you in terms
of practice, there is so much distinguished in terms
of gender division of labor. There are
certain work that only men can do culturally. Some
aspect they're assigned to men and some are women.
And then why some people that don't want to grow
some crops is we're changing our habits. Food habits.
I think it is worldwide. Yes, we
are slowly going to more ready made food.
Maybe someday if we get some small
tablets instead of food, then we should not be
surprised, I guess. Another one
is increased market access because everywhere, even in
the remote places, we're having a road network, and
that's a very good thing and that is also
Changing people's behavior what to eat and what not.
Um, Okay, then, in terms of adaptation
, our management practices, you can see here.
So how they're addressing those kind of changes because I
just talked about the drivers and then here. Okay
The farmers, once they have, um,
rainfall, Monsoon rain then are
along with a dry period and then
they have to grow some crops that can tolerate drought.
We'll talk later on in detail. And then
some crops, they stopped cropping. They don't want
to crop anymore because there are so many things why
they don't want to stop those cropping. And then
they have to reduce the number. That is a part
of adaptation. And in some way it's a very good
thing is that they started to mixed cropping, so
that if they have 2 alternate crops at the time
growing on the same land, then at least
they can have one crop if the other crop fails.
And the other one is the forest. I will
not be talking much more about the forest, but
it has very good link with livestock, so the
forest are becoming more denser and denser. And,
uh, they can have a little amount of forest
so like, yes, they're more focused on timber
And focused on carbon forest, I would say.
So, yes. I'm going to elaborate
the first point I mentioned that. Um, yes,
farmers. They have got, um, improved
variety of rice. And they have got knowledge,
everything. And they can have more in. For instance
,if they used to get, like,
50kg, now, they can get 100 kgs.
So it's a bigger amount of grain.
When these
varieties were introduced, the rice straw
is much more shorter than the traditional one. The
implication here is the rice straw used to be
livestock feed, important livestock feed in dry season
And now they have a little, only a little bit.
They have more rice, more grain for food,
human food. But for the livestock, yes, it's
substantial reduction I would say. And
then in this case, if I relate this with
gender division of labor, gender roles, then women
have hard time to grow, to raise more livestock if
they want. And they have to go further,
like many more hours they have to work.
That's the implication. Um, this one is very
, very good. Uh, like analysis. I
would say. As I mentioned some of the crops,
they are already gone. Yes. You don't find in
the village anymore. They already stopped growing. So
the reason behind - yes, you can teach so many.
So, this loss of Ghalya and Kauno. They are,
like one is, uh, upland rice variety and
the next one is one variety of millet. So
now you can't see these in the community, in
the village anymore. So why is this? You
can see that the green one is the yield is
becoming declining and declining. Yes,
if you see all kind of connections because you have
a problem of level labor and you have a problem
of livestock. Because if you are
reducing number of livestock, then you can't grow more
food because you don't have other options of fertilizer.
So in that case, okay, the income is
very limited, production is very low on. And then
you can see because of like low rainfall and untimely
rainfall. Sometimes, if it comes,
like for a month and it's certain, like
everything it comes within a week. Then you
can see the this yellow color is all because of
socio economic conditions. You see, I just
talked about. Okay, there is a increase supply of
food products from the market. They can substitute because
if it is not going to be a profitable,
then they can substitute it, then the level of scarcity.
Another important thing I came up with okay,
sending girls to their school. It's a very good
thing. We all want that. But here they
said, okay, all our girls, they have
gone to school, so we don't have any farm
labor in to work. So it means they used
to be their right hand for the parents to work
in the field, and on the farm.
I think there are a whole lot of connections.
If you work on those kind of things and you
will see, I think you will be convinced why
they are doing so. Okay. I would like
to do a little bit more on why the livestock
number that farmers are reducing. So I already
mentioned the decline in crop residue. They don't have
more rice straw. That was the main, um
, source of livestock feeding during, um, dry
times. Then you can see the forest.
The forest are more denser. It's very hard to
find understory crops, fodder and other grasses. For
the poor households. It's so hard to get fodder
from those land because they don't have more private land
so that they can gather from private land. And
maybe if you talk about like large landholders,
these men are the problem because they have their
own in private land. So if you see the
differences and why you need to talk
with small holders and large holders. Then weed species.
It might be because of climate change or other
biological things, they are having much more even in
the forest, on both articles of land. And in
every concentration, they said they have to
have like 20% - 25% more time
they have to spend to weed their crops because
of this kind of weeds. They might be good
in future, they don't know, but this time they
are weeds for them because they're not helpful. And
then, of course, the shortage of farm labor.
here I would like to just show this is the
millet and soybean they're cropping together.
The whole idea behind it is, as I
mentioned earlier, they want to have at least one
crop if something happened. Climate, you got anything
Some happen then if one crops is destroyed
they can have another one, that's the idea of
mixed cropping. And by doing so, they
can also save soil moisture. Um, and the
Other important, like, I would say,
kind of silo approach. The development organizations are doing
on in some point, and they know farming system is
very much dependent on livestock, but when they work,
they don't see the link. For instance,
yes, they have raising their forest in a way,
,they just want to have timber as a primary product,
but not for other kind of products. But
if you see there today lives of the Nepalese people
in the village, then there are so many things
other than timber, and the timber is just one.
In many cases, they just need like in
some couple of years, not every day, but
others they need every day. They have, government
and other organizations, they have promoted bio-gas.
But how can the farmers fix, install bio-gas
Land, because they don't have fodder to raise livestock?
And their articles of land is shrinking
in terms of fodder and grasses because they're having,
um, weeds in their land. So I think
they are not link. I've been talking a little
bit on these four dimensions. I would like to
relate those findings, results from these dimensions based on I
draw them from my theoretical orientation. Technical ideas.
One I would be talking about knowledge, and then
access to resources, state of agrobiodiversity
and cross scale interaction. Then I can relate
you. Yes, I briefly mentioned, um
increase access to scientific knowledge that can enhance gender equity
everywhere in everybody, every city, and everywhere.
But here, you see, so planting improve variety of rice.
Everyone has equal access to get that knowledge.
Everyone know how to grow the crops, but at the
End they have a lot of these implications, negative
implication on their livelihoods and their roles.
I already mentioned the forests are much more timber focus
then women can't find fodder and other things.
Then I'll talk about improved rice variety on the
flow of rice straw is reducing. Yeah,
I think yes, you see the implication. And it's
very, very big. And then, um yeah
, um, yes, there is a statement.
I brought this from feminist political ecology literature.
So, limited access to financial resources. I mean
gender equitable access to financial resources. Sometimes it's
very hard. If you have that goal, you
are thinking you can do it. But if you
have some service providers, they are not oriented on
that. Then it's very hard. They're just continuing
. So in my resource case, so they continue
to provide support to male farmers in case of agricultural
crops. And then men are engaged in cash crops and
women are in more kind of subsistence crops. So
you can see the divide because if they are always
in subsistence crop and they don't have access to the
cash income. That is still happening. Still,
you have a focus. You said, government policy and
everything, said, okay. You have a focus
on women because they're more much more marginalized
on. If you go to the village, then
you see a lot of women. They're the ones
who carry all the agricultural tax,
almost all the agricultural tax. In that case,
it's very hard. Um even if you talk about
inequality, but in practice, you don't have.
Then what I would like to emphasize here, working with
the community groups alone, is not enough.
You need to have support organizations
and government whole mechanism also be sensitive on that aspect.
I think another important aspect
is to increase ecological resilience. It means ecological resilience
and increased level of agrobiodiversity is not
always helpful to addressing inequality. Just that's my research
finding here because I see your social system and ecological
system. They may not go together. Sometimes they
may go together. That would be good if it
is, but not all the time they go to
they can go together. So in this case,
if women they continue to grow the Rwandan rice variety
and millet variety on they will have a much more
, um, more amount of time. They have
to spend it, um, in terms of their
labor, because the labor is is very much scarce
thing in village, so you can't do it,
you can't do it anymore. So in that
case, they had to stop cropping those crops
anyway. I think, yeah, I think we
, um all sort of understand. Yes. Uh
, emphasize their social system is so complex you can't
, like, have a straight relationship.
If this thing happened, then this one, you don't see
, you can't see as a linear. Um,
yes. Again. Social system is so much
differentiated by so much the different kind of variables
you have to look at when you are carrying
out research or any development practices.
Having good bioiversity is good thing, but
you can't do all the time. It's very hard
in this case, having good biodiversity and women can't
maintain biodiversity for the sake of biodiversity, if
they can't do it anymore.
Another one, I've talk bits and
pieces about these things. How important is, uh,
cross scale interaction. So in some point you need
to focus to some community. That's all right.
But if you don't have a focus, you don't
,you are not giving more attention to other levels
of management, for instance, support providers in mid
level, district level, regional level and national level.
Then yes, it may not work. It
may not be institutionalized, I would say. I'm
I'm very unfortunate. Thing is, I'm learning How
is the case in other countries as well in many
parts of the countries, including in Nepal - Um
, all development sector, they are very much compartmentalized
. I can, I can tell you if you
go to the village, talk to the farmers.
For the farmers, it is a whole system like
agriculture, crops, livestock, forest, everything come
together. But here you can see we have Forest
Ministry. We have Agriculture Ministry, Livestock Ministry on
holdings of ministry. They are very much compartmentalized and
they work on on their working approaching so much in
kind of silo. So it's very hard just
you working one ministry on one aspect and you want
to gain such a big goal like poverty reduction,
general equality and social equity and social justice so many
things here. I think it applies everywhere. Um
, I think there's the one. Yes. Now
and the conclusion. More importantly, yes, I
mentioned throughout. So I think we need to
work with the institution. We need to have a
right balance to the institutions, and practices, knowledge.
Other than this what I wanted to highlight,
which I couldn't earlier. So it doesn't matter
if you give equal access to knowledge - if you teach
, uh, every same thing to everyone, if
that knowledge generative somewhere is already not vested in
everyone's need. In the case of rice variety. So
each addresses food need of many of the households who
Are large landholders. But for the small holders is
very hard. They can't rely only on those things
and they have to rely on livestock and other things
for their everyday family diet.
I think that's important aspect, and then I
mentioned okay, social resilience, and ecological resilience
so much different thing. Sometimes they can go
together sometimes not. Why I'm emphasizing here is because
I'm working more on like ecology and all these things
because social ecology grew from social ecological systems theory.
It comes from ecological science. It says if there
is a ecological resistance, there has to be
social resilience as well, but it is not.
Yes, I proved this in my research.
And then certainly it is very helpful to explain
these relations and combining these two kind of theoretical apparatus
Is very helpful to explain these relationships, I
would say. And then yes, as I mentioned
earlier, not only the vertical level and also
the horizontal integration or collaboration is so important.
So what I mean here in a practical
sense, okay, in terms off villages, if
someone want to work in the villages, all development
agencies, they are compartmentalized elsewhere. But when they
come to the village they have to come in a
kind of integrated away. Otherwise, the livelihood management
system of the village will be fragmented and it
won't be any helpful for their livelihood and then
they will be in trouble made much more
vulnerable, instead of making good. I
think I have covered so many things earlier on.
Then one more last thing I would like to
emphasize in front of you is: so how can
we change? How can you go forward? Do
you have any idea? So I think that is
much more important. One aspect.
We really need to have critical ourness among the
stakeholders. Not only the community. So having community
, having 100% participation of interest
groups, including women, it's not enough. We
need to have all support systems and everything has to
be changed. Policymakers, everything has to be changed
because policymakers are there. They're making good policies and
they have to go back and get the feedback from
the community whether it is working or not. I
think that is a much more important thing.
I'm done for now. Thank you so much
for your attention. So I'm good in
time. Yeah. I don't know
if this thing work. Let me just see this
one everywhere. No. So I think I'm gonna
let you address the questions. I don't need to
be a facilitator. Raise your hand if you
have questions, or have comments. I'd ask you
to please keep them short. We have 10 minutes
left, and there's over 100 people here, So
I wanna hear. And then we do have a
few minutes after the time. If you want to
come up and speak with her individually. Yes,
please. Yeah. And just speak loud. I'm
gonna turn this off. This doesn't work. Just speak loud
when you speak loud. Walk. No, there's
no. Okay. Okay. Yes, I can
Speak loud, please. So one question here
, please say loudly so others hear. There
were actually two questions.
One is: Are there programs in place
that are actually addressing the, uh, atomized
different agencies who are working in separate ways?
Is there some program that actually tries to educate them
about these connections you have made over here? My
other questions related to a what interests me,
is that you're talking about more kids in school because
the farm situation is changing. What percentage
of the students? Are you talking primary level, or
girls? Oh, you know. So okay,
let me respond. The last one. Oh,
sorry. The question is, um, the percentage
of children going to school, whether it is
from primary school or high school.
Yes, now, more number of kids they're in
high school on this is very more thing we want
. Oh, yeah, by gender and mostly the
girls. Yeah, they didn't have a chance to
go. But now they are going. So I
think. Is that clear? Okay, so in
that case, uh, Nepal government has kind
of compulsory asked everyone present their girls and
boys to school. Everyone is going,
but it's still in primary level they are going.
But in the higher level, that drop out ratio
is is very, very high in case of girls,
yes, in the village. And the
other one. I think it's a very good question.
It's a very big question as well. So
what I would respond is is very hard, because
sometimes people talk. But when they come to the
practice, they don't follow. So it's not about
only agrobiodiversity and other things, but in other
sectors, as well. Then in a village you can
find so many views working. And the government of
course already there. But sometimes it's very
hard. They don't have a kind of strict.
There is a rule it has to go through
the government, or government is to be informed. But
most of the time it is not. It's a
kind of ongoing, I would say difficulty. Dilemma.
Yes. Thank you. Thank you. Yes
please. Yes. Maybe. I'm sorry.
If you will send up and say the question
like, as loud as possible. Thank you for
your nice presentation
[offscreen speaker, inaudible]
I just quickly I think it's a helpful Yes,
that's a very good question. Thank you for that
So you can see not only the precipitation,
there are whole range of things that has affected,
um to [unclear], I think, just to
like, elaborate. He reminded me of upland
rice variety. So maybe in some other parts of
Nepal it's still growing. But for example,
in the high mountains, if they don't have market
access to have a cheaper substitute. But then
where you have market access you have cheaper
substitute that you can buy in the local market.
You don't need to go long distance. So in
that case they stop, uh, for many reasons.
For many reasons. It's not only the production
and it's very, very labor intensive. You have
to do all digging manually. It's very labor intensive.
Sorry, I don't have photo off that, but
it is very, very labor intensive. So because
of labor intensity on because of like production, because
our stories, our family, so many things it
contributed to stop that one. Yes, I'm not
saying they have stopped everywhere throughout
the Nepal. But in that location, yes,
they have done it and they don't have another substitute
of crops. They're just either planting crops because maize
or just putting fallow land. And if you see the
figure of like land fallow of Nepal,
nearly 40% of the land is fallow.
It's a tiny country. We are food
insecure. But our land is fallow. It's so
much, much complex thing going on. Thank you
for asking this question. Yes, please.
How has agrobiodiversity been affected in areas hit by
the 2013 earthquake? Um, yes, that is a very
good question. Definitely. In some places, we
lost all trees and varieties because some of the places
they are with settlements. It is very much.
It is very much. But I don't have that
exact figure. How exactly? But if
I say like my knowledge, from that point
of view, it is very much yes, because
there was also a very big disaster. There are
once you have, like, big landslide. It's all
gone away. Yes, please do have something.
Any questions? Okay. Please. Okay.
I may be mistaken but it seemed
like you seem to be saying
Remittances somehow helping in improving equality.
Would you elaborate?
The question is whether Remittance is
helping to improve gender equality. Yeah, Okay.
Um yes, I think I didn't have time to
mention everything earlier, but it's
good that you asked this question. Yes,
Remittance. In a way it is helping
a lot. In some ways it's helping to reduce diversity and
in terms of household dynamics, gender dynamics.
It is helping a lot in some point. For
instance, um if household and they have, like
nuclear family and husband has gone somewhere else to work
and the rest of the family, Children and wife
are at home, then in that case, they
have invested much more money for the education of the
Children. That's very good, and then, because of
that, because they're getting some money from Remittance,
there is a market access increasing. And
so if some crops are very much labor intensive,
they have they stopped growing. So in that case,
they can save their labor and then do something
else. Are there other things? So in that
case, yes, I would say in a way
, yeah, it has make a little easier for
them. Yes, but not not in every aspect
. Yeah, There are so many other things to
be this past year. Yes. Good, good.
Yes, Yes, yes. 2 questions.
One was: are women culturally in
charge of the livestock for the most part,
not men? Did you know?
So the question is, whether women are
in charge of livestock, or men? Yes, yes.
So in that case, what I would say
is in a Nepali context, yes, of course,
in terms of caring, in terms,
of feeding, women are. So in terms of when they
sell, then women are not, men are in charge.
So when the livestock numbers are
decreasing and yes, and the foraging land is decreasing,
so then women's access to resources are impacted
negatively?
In that sense, because collecting fodder is their
responsibility. So if they don't find any
nearby, then either they have to go farther
away and compromise other tasks or they have to
stop. Okay, and I have another question.
Okay. Ready? Briefly.
Because, you know, I have seen in India,
for example, big cities women are also migrated
out, and often living in slum areas,
serving in very low skill level unpaid jobs with
many consequences of that out migration, including
domestic violence, etcetera. So again, I don't
know if you know, gender inequality, I mean
, if that is something that maybe you have looked at?
Uh, yes, I did not mention
clearly because the majority of the migrating people are men.
Even in man category, that group
is so unique. So, yes, they can
only migrate if they are below 40 years, like
very productive years, and so, yes,
we do have some women migrating at 5%, 6% in,
like, national average. Uh, but as you
said, Yeah, I think both way. Even
men are migrated, there is social tension, and
women are migrated, there is a lot more
Social tension. A very big idea.
Any other questions?
Well, it's actually the end of
our time, so...