- April 01, 2022
Catching up with Hem Narayan Das Chaudhary
We recently caught up with Hem Chaudhary (Mathematics and Chemical-Biological Engineering '23) who is currently conducting an independent research project related to agriculture and the reduction of pesticide residue in Nepal. Read the interview with Hem below to learn more!
Can you describe the problem being addressed by your research?
The presence of high pesticide residue in vegetables in Nepal is a well-established problem. Surprisingly, Nepal is the fourth most vulnerable country to climate change according to the UNDP. Hence, the problem of high pesticide residue will worsen due to climate change as it’ll become harder to manage novel weeds, pests, and emerging diseases. The over-reliance of Nepali farmers on chemical pesticides is harmful to both environmental and human health.
How does your research address the issue? Have you encountered any obstacles?
In collaboration with Agriculture and Forestry University, Chitwan, we initially provided plant-pathogen diagnostic and nutrient testing services to farmers for more than a month. However, farmers still weren’t ready to pay for the services and as a result it became unsustainable. For a few weeks, we tried combining the services with farm-input retail services, meaning we’d give farmers the testing services for free if they’d buy farm input from us. Farmers were more positive toward this scheme, however, we had to match the prices to what they’d pay if they bought directly from local wholesalers and we discovered that farmers pay discounted rates when they buy in large quantities. So, even with this scheme, we were losing money and didn’t have enough funding to keep pursuing it. Moreover, we realized that farmers have a strong incentive to overuse chemicals and pesticides because their only income source is their crops and they’re unsure about the quality of the chemicals, so they overuse to be safe. Finally, we realized that they are really sensitive to consumers' preferences. Therefore, we have made a pivot.
How did you pivot your research to better address the overall problem?
We’re now creating brands reflecting agricultural practices to facilitate farmers to get paid for adopting environmentally conscious, human health conscious, and climate change resistant agricultural practices. We’re creating detailed guidelines or recipes and are working with local educational institutions and agricultural product importers to facilitate farmers to adopt good agricultural practices. More specifically, we’re planning to work with two brand concepts, Integrated Pest Management (IPM) and No-Pesticide brands in tomatoes. The goal of the IPM will be to minimize chemical pesticide usage by helping farmers adopt preventative measures, while the goal of the No-Pesticide brand will be to replace chemical pesticides with biological control methods that exploit the ecological predator-prey-symbiont relationship in nature.
We believe increasing awareness among consumers about the impact of agricultural practices on the environment and their health will drive the adoption of environmentally conscious, human health-conscious, and climate change-resistant agricultural practices among farmers.
