Usha Aryal, 30, is a Successful agriculture entrepreneur from Banganga Municipality Ward no. 2, Kapilvastu. Being the mother of two children also she has started her cow farm as “Cheetanshil Cattle Farm” from 2064 B.S. She started the farm with the initial investment of 1 lakh 80 thousand rupees. Before establishing the farm her family used to have 2 buffaloes for family milk consumption which was quite subsistence in nature. She always has interest in doing something to support her family and bring back her husband from foreign land. So she thought of expanding her family business in commercial scale and acted on it
She now has 25 milking cattle in her farm producing around 200 liter of milk per day. She has been cultivating improved variety of grass in 2 hectare of land to feed her cows. Her monthly revenue is estimated to be 3 lakhs and about 50 percent of which is spent in feed so her monthly income is around 1 lakh from her cattle farm only.
She is also involved in different vegetable production like off-season tomatoes, peas, beans, cauliflower, broccoli, etc in her farm along with cattle which provides additional income. Currently, she employs 2 permanent workers and several other temporary workers on her farm. She has also taken part in different training related to vegetable and livestock production and implementing it on her farm. And thinks of expanding her business at national level.
Recently she has also taken loan of ten lakhs from Agriculture Development Bank for improvement and scientific management of cattle farm. She wants to increase the no. of cows in her farm to 100 milking cattle and provide employment to more no. of workers and be an example to empower women in her society.
In recent years she has also incorporated floriculture in her farm cultivating marigold in 5 kattha of land to reduce the import of marigold to a certain level in the festival season especially on the occasion of Tihar. She was able to sell flowers of around 1.2 lakhs with the investment of only 20 thousand rupees this has also energized her toward floriculture business and is planning to grow marigold in 1 hectare area from next season.
According to Aryal, there are many challenges in agriculture like lack of technical knowledge in farmers, lengthy process for getting subsidies, high marketing cost, improper market, lack of collection center, improper coordination between government and farmers, Unavailability of inputs in time, and many more. She also said as there are many challenges there is also a large opportunity to expand an agriculture enterprise along with the development of agriculture sector of Nepal.
Right now the women living in Banganga visit Usha’s farm to learn the technique of agriculture and livestock and in that way she is seen as a community leader. Usha proudly says if anyone is interested to learn and observe farming from her farm they are most welcome, and she especially gives preference to teaching other women.