Real Heroes The Young Entrepreneurs

Real Heroes: Young Entrepreneurs

by Prof. Dr. Vikash Raj Satyal

A country is a community where the population dynamics is always in action. In Nepal, every daily newspaper and TV news is full of hopeless news regarding politicians, their incompetence, failure, deceit, misuse of funds, rape, kidnap and murder. If you ask any person in the street, they are bound to show great repulsion for politics and politicians. People consider them to be ‘inevitable nonsense’. But surprisingly, most of those who are or were in decision making positions at some point, but were incapable of leading the country, are media darlings. Open any newspaper, and most of the pages will be full of their irritating hypocrisies and failure stories. Any Nepali who reads newspapers is compelled to begin his day with such disenchantment. Mark Twain once said about newspapers “if you don’t read, you are uninformed; if you read, you are misinformed.” When will real heroes who have made some significant contribution to the society through their efforts become media scoop? 

The census of 2011 shows that about 2 million Nepalis are abroad, of which more than 80 percent were working, and 84 percent are aged between 15 to 44. Hence, about 1.4 million energetic Nepalis between the age of 15 and 44 are squandering their potential abroad, and we have lost them. In the meantime, our agriculture potential is continuously declining. We used to export rice and cereal once upon a time, and in the last six months we imported cereal worth Rs 10.3 billion and vegetables worth Rs 2.5 billion. As a cumulative effect of all imports, our trade deficit totaled Rs 232 billion. But even in these grim conditions, there is a silver lining, a growing group of mostly young, enthusiastic, and foreign returned agro-entrepreneurs. 

Balkrishna Ghimire of Kavre is a returnee from the Gulf. He worked in Kuwait as a driver for 7 years. He lived an arduous life there, but never earned much money. When he returned, he opened a dairy farm in his village. He made a profit of Rs 60 thousand in the first month from the farm, which was twice the amount of savings he had made in Kuwait. About a dozen people are now working in his firm. Amrit Gurung and Tul Rai, both UK returnees, are now farming Rainbow Trout. Gurung converted barren lands in Ghandruk to a fish pond, from where he sold fish worth Rs 12.2 million last year. When he was in the UK, it was hard for him to save even Rs 50 thousand a month. 

Sujan Shrestha’s Hinwa wine factory in Sankhuwasabha produces 166 thousand liters of wine each year. It uses fruits collected from forests which would otherwise have been wasted. The factory indirectly employs thousands of people. CP Sharma of Rupandehi is famous for his ostrich farming, which according to him is the largest in South and East Asia. Every part of the bird is consumable: meat, skin, feather, and even fat. One adult bird weighs 250 kg, and the meat costs Rs 2,000 per kg. He has 800 adult birds in the farm and hopes to do a business of Rs 87 billion in the year 2020. Sharma says that more than 300 families supply him with grass, and 8 thousand other people are tied to his business. 

These are many other examples of such agro-entrepreneurs who are changing the face of the nation with their work. Their story is not like the billion dollar success story of Mark Zuckerberg, who invented Facebook and became the youngest self-made billionaire. Rather, Nepali heroes have shown a trend of hope. Besides their satisfactory income, each has used local natural resources and generated thousands of jobs. Their story informs us that it is more profitable and congenial to work in the country than to work abroad amidst adverse conditions. 

As all these initiatives are percolating at the individual level, shouldn’t the government be more responsible in this regard? At the very least, it can support these initiatives by providing uninterrupted working environment. At most, it can support these youth entrepreneurs by arranging for them to have the required technical knowledge, since most of these self-made entrepreneurs have limited or traditional knowledge. They need the knowhow of crop diversity, modern cultivation methods, and tools. ‘Maha Agriculture’ initiated by Madan Krishna Shreshta and Haribansha Acharya is giving such support at a few places to vegetable farmers. The government should also publicize their success stories in places where they can be replicated. Finally, if the government can learn that youth are the precious wealth of a country, and try to create a working environment inside the country for them rather than leaving them with no option but to seek remittance, it would truly benefit the nation.