He had assumed the earnings he was making from vegetable farming would be enough to pay the installments.  "But in practical it wasn´t that easy," he said. At that time, Giri, who´s now 43, was working as a vegetable farmer. This had been his profession for the past seven years and he was growing all sorts of vegetables on five katthas (18,190 sq ft) of rented land. 

 

"The work was giving me something like Rs 50,000 to Rs 60,000 per year, which was a pretty decent amount in those days," he said. Although most of this money used to go on feeding the family members, he had managed to save around Rs 500,000 over the years. But as his home-building project started gathering pace, his savings also started petering out.

 

"Suddenly I had nothing left," he said. "And the money that I was earning from the farm was only enough to cover household expenses. So how was I supposed to pay the installments?" That´s when Giri decided to take up a job in Qatar, something which he had never thought of. Qatar was a completely different environment for Giri. It was a developed country with modern infrastructure and top-of-the-end facilities, but for those like him the quality of life was far worse than in Nepal."Around 20 of us had to live in a shoe-box like apartment," he said. "And we had to sleep in double-decker beds."

 

Yet he called it "destiny" and put all his focus on work. He also lived a frugal life, saving something like Rs 35,000 per month out of the salary of around Rs 45,000 that he used to get. This continued for around six years.

 

"Life was going on and I was happy as I was saving quite a lot of money," he said. Then one day he received a call - a call that would eventually bring him back home. It was from his wife who informed him that some of his friends back home were growing vegetable at commercial level and were earning "pretty good amount".

 

At first, the idea of returning to Nepal didn´t interest him. He had worked as a farmer before and he knew the profession wasn´t something that would let him lead a comfortable life. Yet he slept on the idea for the next couple of days, during which he did a lot of soul searching. 

 

"I asked myself why I had come to Qatar. The answer was pretty obvious: to repay the loan. I had already done that. On top of that I had also saved additional 300,000-400,000 rupees," he said. He then assumed he had accomplished his mission and there was no reason for him to stay away from home. So in December 2009 he returned to Nepal. Back home, things had changed a lot. His friends had expanded their farming areas and were growing vegetables throughout the year. He was also happy that the agricultural cooperative - Katahar Danda Agricultural Cooperative - which he had co-founded in 1999, was still alive and serving its purpose of providing market access to farm products and extending support to members.

 

Yet something seemed to be lacking. "It was the yields, which had grown over the years, but not that substantially," Giri said. Then came Sahara Nepal, an NGO, which had received a grant of Rs 14.7 million from the Asian Development Bank to implement commercial agriculture development programs in various places in Jhapa. 

 

The NGO, which came in the scene last year, had agreed to invest Rs 775,000 of the total amount it had received on Katahar Danda Agricultural Cooperative. This was spent on providing training on enhancing yields and pest management to 45 members of the group.

 

"In one year´s time, we have learned various planting techniques and accumulated skill on identifying different diseases. We have also learned how to make compost out of weeds that grow in our fields," Giri´s wife, Anita Upreti, said. 

 

"Because of these trainings, our crop yield on each kattha (3,638 sq ft) of land has gone up to around 10-15 quintals from around 5-7 quintals, while annual earning from per kattha of land has now gone up to Rs 21,350 from around Rs 15,000 of last year," Basanta Kumar Rajbanshi, chairman of the cooperative said. 

Giri, one of the beneficiaries of this transformation, is now growing vegetables on 1.5 bighas (around 1 hectare) of land and is earning more than Rs 500,000 per year. 

 

When asked if he regrets coming back home, Giri, who supplements his income by working as an insurance agent, said: "No. If I can maintain this level of income in the coming days, I will never ever go abroad to work."