International Volunteer- Flora’s involvement in Agro Farm Program

Flora from Hong Kong, helped Volunteers Initiative Nepal (VIN) in conducting a lot of farming related tasks during her four weeks long stay, working in Agro Farm Program. As she was in the community working for the Agro Farm program, she did everything including digging the fields, spreading the composed fertilizers in the field, planting garlic, beans, cabbage, cauliflower and so forth. The techniques of using fertilizers were different depending on the crops.
The women in the field were using composed fertilizers instead of using the chemical fertilizers and the community women they make it once every week. The composed fertilizers prepared by the women is sufficient to them for the next three months. Flora was also involved in rice harvesting. Rice-harvesting happens only once a year in October but it needs a lot of hard work. Together with the community people, she cut the paddy straw under the sun.  Further, she also got involved in separating the rice grains from the straw without using any machines.
Another task she was involved in was packing the vegetables from abandoned fields. The packing was done without using plastic bags. It was done just by tying the vegetables into bundle after harvest. And one of the family members would take the bundled vegetables to sell at the market. Before digging an abandoned field, they would make sure that they had collected all the undomesticated vegetables and spices from that field.