Ten years back 45 years old Mr Bhawani Prasad Dhungel VDC-Sankranti-8 was quite shattered for being unable to do something better in his life. His life along with his wife & a son got miserable when he lost his job of a postman, the only means of survival.

Bhawani, who owned 3 ropanis (~ 0.15 ha.) of land along with leased land started growing vegetables like cauliflowers & radish for seedlings, but before he could recover the cost of seedlings the KOSEPANI, supporting institution moved out of the area, which made him unable to pay back rent for the leased land.

In the year 2061, Chaitra (April 2005), he undertook training on ginger farming with the help of RAP/Helvetas.

Being assured by a trainer that with a small land holding one can earn for the good living, he returned with encouragement and zeal to his village and started exploring inputs for ginger cultivation. Although, the unavailability of sufficient ginger rhizomes at the beginning disappointed him, he however, never gave up the idea and kept himself going with the plan.

Despite this, his untiring and continuous efforts that never stopped ultimately turned to get success collecting 80 kg of ginger rhizomes and started ginger farming. The switch over of producing cereals to the cash crop cultivation from a very limited piece of land too gave him more mental troubles by his family members, neighbours and other well-wishers.

Also, his wife refused to cooperate with him saying the land was suitable for maize and not for ginger. Due to which a conflict arose between them and they even stopped communicating each other. However, Bhawani had enough patience to wait for the right time.

In the year 2062, Poush (Dec 2005) he produced 12 quintals of ginger out of which keeping aside 2 quintals of rhizomes he sold out 10 quintals of ginger to FECOFUN Terhathum at the rate of NRs 10 per kg and pocketed NRs 10,000. Nevertheless, had he sown maize in the same land he would have hardly produced maize worth NRs 1,000 only.

Following the profit through ginger farming Bhawani’s wife realized her mistake and started cooperating him and this time they went with 2 quintals of ginger rhizomes for cultivation.

Due to a small holding of land Bhawani experimented growing ginger, maize and round (Akabare) chilli in the same land and got better produce from all three crops.

With the income from Akabare & ginger, Bhawani could not only buy enough food for his family but also repaid NRs 20,000 loan to the moneylender.

In the year 2063 & 2064 (2006 & 2007) he made profits of NRs 35,000 and 80,000 respectively from the same business besides buying enough food for his family. Thus respecting his dedication and hard work RAP delegated him as a permanent local resource person for ginger and also trained him on ginger processing.

Post training he started processing ginger juice and produced ginger candy from home and his produce ven started being used locally for wedding parties etc.

For his motivation RAP included him for an exposure visit to Palpa district where he came across farmers toiling in the remotest areas. This encouraged him a lot and thus gave continuity to his profession.

Bhawani is now living a better life. He repaid his loan of NRs 2 lakhs taken for expansion for cultivation and now has a saving of NRs 2 lakhs out of which NRs 1.5 lakhs is in the Bank. Also, 30 quintals of ginger is ready to be sold in the farm.

Nowadays, he has visitors from various communities & projects for exposure visit who thank him for his work and return with lots of inspiration and commitment to work alike.

Inspired by Bhawani’s work his neighbours Mr Hom Deep Dhungel and Mr Roop Narayan Acharya too have taken up fresh vegetable and Akabare chilli business as their main source of income.

Considering his past & present Bhawani acknowledges RAP’s contribution and thanks from his heart.