Ram Bahadur Rayamajhi worked in a furniture shop in India for nearly 15 years but returned to his home village in western Nepal's Pyuthan district several years ago, after suffering from a nerve problem.
With his son unable to find a good job, Rayamajhi had to provide for his household of eight people and took up farming as his main profession.
"Sometimes a heavy downpour and hailstones would destroy my field crops, and at other times [they] would fail due to water scarcity," he said. He also struggled with pests and diseases. As a result of these multiple problems, he ended up farming only half of his land, leaving the rest barren.
That was until two years ago, when the provincial government launched a "smart agriculture" program in his village of Darbhan.
Rayamajhi now irrigates his land from a 75,000-litre tank constructed under the program, filled with water pumped from a borehole using a motor-driven by hydroelectric power. "Due to the continuous supply of water, the crop yield has increased," he added, noting his mustard harvest had almost doubled this season.
