Looking for Home: Hasera

Here in the mid-hills of Nepal, in the district of Kavre, in a little village called Patlekhet, is a farm called Hasera. The name Hasera comes from three colors: Hariyo (green) Setho (white) Ratho (red). Hariyo is for fruits and veggies, white is for dairy products, and red is for meat products. Ha Se Ra.

But Hasera is not really a production farm. Hasera is primarily a training and research farm. It was started some twenty years ago by Govinda Sharma and his wife Mithu. After studying agriculture in the Netherlands, Govinda started the farm using the principles of permaculture and his own traditional Nepali farming background. Govinda and Mithu conduct many different trainings, from three-day organic farming courses for local farmers to a fourteen-day comprehensive International Permaculture Design Course (which has so far had members from seventy-four different countries).

Besides the trainings, Govinda conducts research on the farm and in the surrounding area. Studying which varieties of crops give the best yields in this area, testing different methods of irrigation, and documenting the use of chemicals and their effects in the village farms, this research is done to benefit the farming communities in Patlekhet and the surrounding areas. Govinda also has a quite extensive seed bank of local varieties of crops, and encourages the farmers in the area to avoid hybrid and GMO seeds, in addition to raising awareness about the effect of chemical pesticides and fertilizers on the land and people.

Hasera also has many volunteers, foreign and Nepali (or in my case foreign and Nepali) come through to learn, help out, and exchange ideas. I will be here for about three or four weeks, hopefully to get a taste of the practice of permaculture.