Hope Fades in Fields, Hunger Rises in Homes

Hope Fades in Fields, Hunger Rises in Homes

When I started my Daayitwa journey, I still remember the day I was assigned my research topic.  At that initial stage of brainstorming ideas and exploring research questions, I hadn’t analyzed the problems of microenterprises from the farmer’s point of view. Even though I have roots in agriculture, I somehow overlooked them. 

It could be because, like many others, I see farmers as just informal workers. I was used to observing agriculture through policy, reports, and academic theories. I never paused to ask myself, “Are farmers’ voices even being heard where decisions are made?” These ideas and thoughts swirling in my mind pushed me to sit down and put the problems into words, finally. So, let’s take a moment to unfold their story - the farmer’s story and, in many ways, our own too.

When it comes to food, our gratitude often stops at the kitchen. We thank the hands that cook, but rarely think about the hands that grow. This quiet absence speaks volumes about how we, as a society, perceive farming and how little we truly acknowledge the people who make every meal possible. 

But behind every meal is a story. A story folded with love and hate, happiness and sorrow, hope and despair, and giving and losing. Farmers survive with this story every single day. From soil to market, their way is full of both pride and pain, of hope and despair—all uncovered side by side. 

Producing crops isn’t just about making food available on our plates. It’s about investing one’s heart, energy, and labor into the land, season after season. Most farmers continue farming with the simple hope of improving their livelihoods. In return, all effort seems to go futile, especially when selling the harvest becomes more painful than growing it.  

With every passing moment, we hear of farmers being compelled to sell their goods at the farmgate price. They are forced to do it, not for the sake of earning, but just so their goods don't go to waste. During my recent visit to Chitwan, I saw tomatoes being sold at just NPR 10-15 per kg at the farm gate. But by the time those tomatoes reached markets in Kathmandu, the prices had jumped to Rs. 50-60 per kg. It was a constant reminder of inefficiencies in our supply chains, where farmers bear all the risk but get the smallest amount of reward.  

In many ways, farmers feel discouraged and hopeless in the farming occupation, in which agriculture is no longer considered a sustainable or dignified path. Besides all these financial and market challenges, there is a bitter truth: farming is still often seen as a “low-status” profession. During my interaction with farmers in Surkhet, one testament stayed and was recalled time and again. A farmer said, “We choose farming not because we seek more opportunities in it, but just to make ourselves busy. We don’t want the future of our son and daughter in such a low-respected profession. Listening to such from farmers was really heartbreaking and also a call to action for it. It highlights a loss of hope in farming as a future. It raises a serious question: if this is how our farmers feel today, what will happen tomorrow? 

Any visit to the farmer’s field was humbling and heartbreaking, too. Seeing the gap between their effort and the little they get in return, either in terms of support or respect, made me realize how unfair we have become to those who grow our food. If this unfairness to farmers continues like this, we may reach a stage where no one grows our food. While searching for opportunities, farmers are migrating to other countries, leading to the breakdown of our food systems. With empty fields, we are soon having empty plates and empty stomachs, where nothing can be left on our table. 

This is the reason why we need to speak up for the farmers, with the farmers. Their struggles are real, and while they are loud on the ground, they are still too quiet in our conversations. Just pause and think twice—what if one day the Nepal-India border closed, and Nepal had no more growing farmers? Food insecurity prevails!! Considering farmers as a core of our survival, their concerns are loudly discussed in halls of policy and power, not only in village meetings. 

Because when hope fades in the fields, hunger rises in homes, and we can’t afford to wait until it’s too late to act.