Helping women farmers resume food production after the Nepal earthquakes
Mira Upreti kneels on the dirt floor in her hut, cooking food on a makeshift fireplace. The corrugated iron roof and walls, and the fire, make the air inside hot and smoky. At night, mosquitos come in through the chicken wire covering the open windows.
Nearby, Mira’s former house is in ruins after the first major earthquake in Nepal, on 25 April. The 45-year-old’s crucial stores of rice, maize, mustard and millet seeds were buried. “After the earthquake, for days I couldn’t think how we were going to survive,” Mira said.
Mira’s husband died some years ago. Since then she has run their subsistence farm in Khairenitar village, Nuwakot district, and cared for her mother-in-law. And Mira is not alone. In the six worst-affected districts—where FAO is focusing its earthquake response—one in four farming households are run by women. Some of these women are unmarried, or widows, or their husbands are working overseas to earn money. These women and their families are often more vulnerable to food insecurity and poor nutrition, particularly after a natural disaster.
As a result, as part of its earthquake response, FAO has identified vulnerable women running farming households and is helping them to resume food production and start rebuilding their livelihoods. Mira’s was one of 65 000 households to receive vegetable seeds; one of 40 000 to receive rice seeds and one of 20 000 to receive feed supplements for livestock from FAO.