To date, the debate in the media by civil society, academics, government officials, and development organizations is often based on anecdotal evidence, personal opinions, or appears biased due to organizational or personal agendas. Those commenting on this issue have generally never lived in the regions they talk about, and there is an almost complete lack of empirical research on the topic.[break] In addition, the Nepalis who receive food assistance – over two million of the remote poorest of the poor – are unable to have their voices on the topic heard.
It was these factors which motivated me to write an academic thesis on the issue of dependency, and conduct independent research in Karnali. My research included living for two months in the remote district of Mugu. My study ultimately revealed that the three major negative perceptions of food assistance in Nepal appeared unfounded, as discussed below. However, when it comes to sustainable food security, the current food assistance is only one piece of the solution, and in Nepal, much more needs to be done.
Perception #1: “Food assistance in the form of rice changes local food habits. This leads to a neglect of locally grown foods, such as millet or wheat.”
Anyone who has ever traveled to Mugu will tell you of the millet bread the visitor is offered by locals, often provided with some sisnu (nettle). During the entire time I spent in Mugu, I never met one person who disliked their locally grown millet. In fact, my study found that locally grown products were considered the most important food sources available to most households. The reason that households are becoming more and more dependant on rice is simple: production of local crops is no longer enough to sustain their food needs, and therefore reliance on all market-procured items is growing.
My own observations of food habits in Mugu indicate that although many people prefer to eat rice, this is the result of a combination of practical, cultural and historical factors, not necessarily food assistance alone. For example, women preferred rice as it is easier and less labor-intensive to prepare than millet bread; and older people preferred rice because they felt it was easier to digest. At the same time, the value of rice in Hindu culture is unarguable. Rice has been used in traditional rituals for centuries in the Karnali region, and historically, its citizens had to provide rice as a desirable offering since the time of Gorkha rule.
Perception #2: “The expectation of being provided rice by the NFC or WFP leads to a neglect of local food production as it is easier just to receive rice either at the market or from WFP.”
While this opinion is held by many wealthy and educated people, to the poor and food-insecure villagers of Mugu, it is insulting and not reflective of their daily struggle for survival. Indeed, there appears to be no credible evidence that people have reduced their farming efforts due to laziness. On the contrary, available statistical evidence indicates that over a long period of time, local crop production is probably slowly increasing across the Karnali. The problem is that population growth has exceeded crop production growth, and household landholdings are now generally too small to feed families for the entire year. This is particularly so when natural disasters such as droughts, pests and severe winds destroy crops over multiple harvest periods.
The assumption that people become lazy from food assistance is built on the premise that sufficient food is provided for 12 months in a timely manner so that people can rely on it. This is simply not the case with WFP or with NFC food distribution. Firstly, WFP, through its Food for Work (FFW) program, only provides 160 kg of rice and 20kg of lentils for 40 days of work, which is only enough to feed one family for a maximum of two months during the agricultural lean period –and that too provided once or twice a year – and this food is not guaranteed.
“We just don’t know when it (WFP FWW program) will come, or when it won’t,” said one villager. “So how can we give up our local production if we can’t be sure about WFP to come to our village?”
In relation to the NFC, many interviewees complained of the unreliability and inaccessibility of NFC’s rice, and that only government employees and NGO workers were given regular amounts.
If food assistance programs can’t even fulfill the entire food deficit of a household, and if they are not reliably provided, how can people even think to reduce their own crop production?
Perception #3: “Organizations like WFP and NFC are motivated by self-interest in promoting food assistance rather than agricultural development.”
Of course, food assistance is not a sustainable solution. I agree with many others that what is also needed is investment in local infrastructure, agriculture, health, and education. Asked what they needed the most, almost all villagers I interviewed in Mugu answered, “Water!”
However, food assistance holds the potential to be used as a modality for infrastructure and other development. For instance, WFP currently supports all food-insecure households in Karnali through its Food/Cash for Work activities that provide food and/or cash in exchange for work on road building, micro irrigation projects, orchard plantations, enhanced farming techniques, sustainable land management, etc. While these projects can be improved for greater effectiveness, these activities can also contribute to sustained food security if implemented in a way that considers long-term goals, and if applied as a complementary measure to broader development activities.
Before critiquing any organization that provides assistance to the poorest and most vulnerable people of Nepal, one should carefully consider what the alternative to none-assistance would mean. My study supported numerous other studies which have found that without assistance, poor households are forced to sell assets and their land, remove children from school, and reduce consumption to cope during times of food scarcity. And often women and children suffer the most in such situations. In addition, the increasing trend to “crisis migration” as a coping strategy means that many men are forced to leave their farmlands if assistance is not provided.
Ultimately, neither WFP nor the NFC have a strict mandate for long-term development, and accusing these organizations of self-serving behavior shifts the focus away from the government and non-government organizations which do have this mandate.
What can and needs to be done
I believe accusing food assistance recipients in the Karnali of becoming lazy reflects the negligence of Kathmandu-based intellectuals who have never spoken to or lived with the people in these areas. It is time to acknowledge the plight of these people, and to press for the implementation of proper national policy, and monitoring of interventions to tackle food insecurity in the region. There is an urgent need not only for enhanced development planning and investment in this region, but also proper implementation and monitoring of interventions to ensure funds are not siphoned and lost.
The National Planning Commission of Nepal needs to lead a national food security strategy, which specifically addresses Karnali, and development partners and donors should synergize their efforts in the region. To this effect, WFP should consider development of a longer-term development/ country program which supports an NPC-led strategy.
The writer is a PhD candidate at the University of Zuerich. She completed research on the topic of food assistance and dependency in Nepal as an independent researcher in 2009 while completing her Masters at the University of Bonn in Germany. She can be contacted at miriamwenner@googlemail.com
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