We have always thought of Nepal as an ideal travel destination, a land of breathtaking landscapes, steeped in a fascinating culture and home to an equally fascinating people. Not everyone knows, however, that in Nepal – where 80 per cent of the population lives off farming – increasingly aggressive, irreparable effects on people and the environment are making themselves felt. Many people have reported liver, kidney and intestinal conditions, while the ecosystem is condemned to pollution, accelerated erosion and soil depletion following more than two decades of pressure from multinationals to adopt hybrid seeds and the widespread use of chemical inputs such as fertilisers and pesticides.

The need to transition to a sustainable farming model

The problem and the root cause of this harm to people and the environment lie in an industrial production model that, through the use of chemical fertilisers and pesticides, fails to reflect the potential of these productive contexts, where very thin topsoil and the fragmentation of landholdings make it impossible to benefit from industrial farming systems.

Policies promoting GMO or hybrid seeds – and consequently the promotion of industrial chemical use – have shown their limits, and small Nepalese farmers, both rural and urban, are turning their gaze towards a sustainable, organic and traditional farming model. As if that were not enough, the earthquake of 25 April 2015 worsened the agricultural situation and deepened Nepalese people's dependence on global economic interests. As a result, for many families, buying and producing food has become a daily challenge.

The contribution of the Association for international solidarity in Asia

It is in this context that the project of the Associazione per la solidarietà internazionale in Asia (Asia) – a non-governmental organisation founded in 1988 by Namkhai Norbu that has been operating at the foothills of the Himalayas for nearly thirty years with the aim of safeguarding the identity and cultural heritage of those peoples – takes shape. To do so, it promotes processes of economic, social and health development that place local populations, with their human, cultural and environmental resources, at the centre. Over many years of experience, Asia has helped more than 500,000 people in Tibet, western China, India, Nepal, Mongolia, Myanmar (Burma) and Sri Lanka.

In Nepal in particular, the Coltiva il cambiamento project is providing important responses in the fight against poverty and in raising greater awareness of the employment opportunities that can arise from caring for the land. At the conference Coltiva il cambiamento – La prospettiva della permacultura tra Italia e Nepal, held on 13 November in Milan, the results achieved to date by the project on urban allotments and permaculture were presented.

The project and the results achieved to date

For the past year, Asia has been supporting Nepalese families through the creation of urban and semi-urban allotments and small cooperatives in order to promote sustainable farming techniques and encourage the recovery of local crop varieties with high nutritional value that are at risk of extinction due to the introduction of hybrid seeds. The project's aim is to strengthen the effectiveness and quality of household vegetable gardens by launching container farming and terraced area farming programmes that draw on traditional permaculture knowledge, as well as training activities on sustainable farming techniques aimed at both the most vulnerable families and technical practitioners.

In the towns of Dhulikel and Banepa, more than 390 people have been trained in sustainable farming practices in accordance with the principles of permaculture, codes of conduct and behavioural standards for organic certification and the maintenance of shared standards. Twenty technicians from the district office responsible for Nepalese agricultural policy have been trained and made aware of organic farming techniques and the consequences of the widespread use of pesticides and chemical fertilisers. More than 240 kits for farming on terraced and marginal urban land and 150 kits for container farming and roof gardening have been distributed. Two nurseries managed by the farming cooperatives that were set up have also been created; they produce organic local seeds and plants ready for planting in containers or in the ground.

Training courses and permaculture in Italy too

These activities have also been proposed across the Lombardy region. In particular, lessons and workshops were organised involving primary and secondary schools in Milan (thanks to the partner Eliante) and Brescia (thanks to Maremosso-cauto), to connect, through a green thread, two very distant urban realities that nonetheless often share similar needs and challenges.

Allotments and greenhouses represent a valid alternative to intensive farming based on chemical fertilisers and pesticides, to GMOs and to the abuses of multinationals. On the project website, it is possible to support this ideal and transform the future of numerous families in Nepal, making possible a genuine return to a sustainable way of life and a reclaiming of local, ancient traditions and ecological models.