Nepalese government is not for the people

Balaram Banskota, the secretary of All Nepal Peasant’s Association (ANPA), is a patient and communicative person who explained how they focus their efforts on raising the awareness of Nepal’s peasants on food sovereignty. Tools are given to the 75 districts of the country to ease the contact between one million people.

The problem of hunger can not be solved through globalization or neo-liberalist mechanisms. There is a need, instead, for greater food distribution and production programs.

Speaking about the facts and figures, 76% of the total population work in agriculture but very few of them are the owners of the land. They can not complete the livelihood so they are fighting; demanding their land rights, land holding and finally food sovereignty. Their main struggle is to uphold Human rights standards. The other 24% are working in the service sectors as industrialists, migrant workers, etc.

The peasants are working under a contract with landowners, who have close ties with the government. We are speaking of a reactionary government; that does not care about its people. In Nepal, there is no child allowance, no unemployment benefit, no medical insurance or any other form of a welfare.

To reduce hunger, the ANPA is seeking subsidies for the farming sector. Nepal is among the world’s 10 poorest countries and surprisingly they do not receive any subsidies for agriculture.

Another point of their struggle, explains Balaram, is to pass on the knowledge about the World Trade Organization to allow ordinary people to take decisions and fight against this unjust system. In addition, they want to continue to manage the land using sustainable agricultural methods that do not use unnecessary chemical fertilizers and pesticides.

Balaram also explains that Nepal is divided into three climate sectors, categorized by altitude. However, as this stand, their variety of rich flavorsome products has not been able to be sold because of the lack of transportation facilities and difficulties negotiating for access to India’s transportation system.

When I asked Balaram about the effectiveness of their measures in these adverse conditions, he answered me simply: “It will be effective day by day”. From my point of view, this is the most intelligent perspective but also the most difficult to implement. Today, Asian people in developing countries are managing a program so as to reduce hunger by 50% by 2015. Successful measures such as the People’s Caravan for Food Sovereignty, traveling through Asia, is a good tool to lead an action upon governments and make them aware of a real agrarian reform. The objective of the Caravan is to raise awareness amongst peasants about the worsening of their situation under the pretext of neo-liberal globalization. “WTO, out of agriculture”, has been chanted in Kathmandu.