Cheesemaking in Nepal: Dairy farmers at the top of the world

François Driard says he found Nepal perfect but for one thing: cheesemaking. So he founded the first and only French cheese farm at the top of the world.


It is 5 a.m. and François Driard is awake to handmilk his herd of Fresians. This, however, is no regular dairy farmer. Perched on the brink of the Shivapuri National Park, where the Katmandu Valley becomes Himalayan foothills, is Nepal’s first and only French cheese farm.


Mr. Driard settled in Nepal after working in 30 countries in three years as a wandering journalist. “Nepal was perfect for me: beautiful mountains, beautiful women, beautiful climate – but no cheese.... I knew I had to do something about this.”


Cheese production was introduced to Nepal in 1952, as part of a Swiss-backed initiative, but only processed kinds were readily available.


Having realized his calling, Driard traveled to his native Alps to learn the traditional art of making Tomme de Savoie, a semi-soft cow cheese, and on his return in 2007 he and three Nepali partners founded the Himalayan French Cheese Company.

Farming in Nepal, which is a Hindu state, has presented some unique problems. It is illegal to put down ill and injured cows, and he has lost several sheep and goats to a mountain leopard.


Driard admits some difficulty persuading the locals, who first described his Tomme as “rotten foreigner’s cheese,” to try his product but he swiftly proved a big hit with the luxury hotels and ex-pats in Katmandu. In Nepal the average wage is $200 per year, and at $20 per kilogram (about 35 ounces), Driard’s cheese is aimed exclusively at the luxury market.

But for the newly minted cheese farmer this is only the beginning of his gastronomic revolution. From the success of his current farm, Driard is preparing a move to a larger one where he can work on more French delicacies. He plans to introduce several new cheeses, pork sausages, Breton cider, and pâté de foie gras – if the leopards don’t get him, that is.

Battle over Nepal's peace process

By Dhruba Adhikary

KATHMANDU - Hopes that a United Nations special mission would ensure that Nepal's peace process went smoothly are fading due to growing mistrust between the interim government and officials attached to the world body. The dispute mainly revolves around former combatants associated with Maoist rebels who agreed to renounce a decade-long armed insurgency in 2006.

While murmurs of government discontent were already audible, the row between UN and government officials became a matter of intense controversy last week when a senior visiting UN official publicly criticized Nepal's political party leaders for accusing the mission of inaction.

"We are dismayed that some commentators try to hold the mission [United Nations Mission in Nepal, or UNMIN] responsible for situations and shortcomings that by very insistence of the parties themselves, the mission has no capacity to control," B Lynn Pascoe, under secretary general for political affairs, told a Kathmandu audience on March 11. "This is absurd and should come to an end."

Using expressions such as "boring arguments" and "cheap shots", his remarks infuriated several members of the governing coalition, who took up the issue at a subsequent cabinet meeting. Some of the ministers ostensibly raised the question of diplomatic norms.

Pascoe, before taking up his present UN post in early 2007, was a career American diplomat with ambassadorial stints in Indonesia and Malaysia.

Kathmandu's chattering classes have found fault with the extreme positions taken by both sides. "It was unnecessary for the cabinet to issue a statement ... a simple demarche by the foreign secretary, not even minister, would have sufficed," Sridhar K Khatri, head of the South Asia Center for Policy Studies, told local media.

Pascoe's speech on Thursday alluded to two notable aspects of the UNMIN's limited mandate since it started in January 2007: its duty to assist in organizing elections for the constituent assembly and to monitor the flow of arms.

The election was held in April 2008, and the elected assembly is at present working to draw up a new constitution for a republican Nepal, replacing the monarchy. The deadline for the promulgation of new statute is May 28.

The second issue, monitoring the arms and troops of the Nepalese Army and the Maoists, is thornier than the first. Ideally, the anomaly of keeping two armies in one country would end before the promulgation of a new constitution. The committees formed to organize the former rebels' integration and rehabilitation have been working for months without substantive progress.

Meanwhile, the men and women in rebel uniform, cantoned in UN-monitored camps, are kept waiting as their political masters continuously engage in negotiations over their possible integration into Nepal's national army and other security agencies. The ex-guerrillas number at around 19,600, according to registrations lists, after 4,000 were "discharged" last month for being minors.

Authorities in the interim government say that the number of combatants in camps has noticeably decreased over time, yet they continue to draw daily allowances and use these resources to conduct communist propaganda. It was on this basis that Peace and Reconstruction Minister Rakom Chemjong sought UNMIN's help to determine the actual number of combatants. However, the UNMIN declined saying that the relevant peace accords require it to maintain a degree of confidentiality.

"UNMIN, contrary to popular misconception, has been given no mandate or capacity to police the cantonments," the UN envoy said. "Its access to information about the status of the two armies or their numbers depends entirely on their voluntary cooperation."

Minister for Information and Communications Shanker Pokharel insisted that authorities were not seeking any classified information; rather they were trying to obtain UNMIN's cooperation in ascertaining the number of combatants in the camps.

The dispute escalated as Defense Minister Bidhya Bhandari referred to the UNMIN as "the Maoist party's tail". UNMIN chief Karin Landgren wrote to the prime minister asking for Bhandari's remarks to be retracted. "This statement is untrue and defames the United Nations and its founding principles," Republica newspaper quoted her as saying in the letter.

Interim Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal and his colleagues continue to cite the UN's position on combatant numbers as an obstacle to the peace process. But observers are perplexed at the government's inability to obtain the information directly from the Maoists, who are now a duly registered political party that commands nearly 40% of the 601 seats in the constituent assembly. The government also has a police force and intelligence agencies at its disposal.

Geopolitical plank

Some observers say that in its attempts to marginalize the UNMIN, the government is pandering to neighboring nations that would rather see the UN withdraw from strategically placed Nepal.

Nepal has traditionally served as a buffer zone between India and China, and neither Delhi nor Beijing seems willing to see that position shaken by Western powers. Even the presence of the UN, which deploys staff across the world, is a sensitive matter for them.

When it comes to the question of influence over Nepal, for once the rivals' interests may converge. China can help India, and itself, by moving against an extension of the UNMIN's mandate at the Security Council - which renews the UNMIN's tenure - where China has a permanent seat.

The influential Kantipur newspaper has editorially censured the "childish reaction" of the government, saying that attempts to sideline the UN and rest of the international community are motivated by a desire to appease India and could damage Nepal's credibility.

Analysts in Kathmandu also say the government's attempt to marginalize the UNMIN is undemocratic as the UN mission was formed at the request of a seven-party alliance and the Maoists.

"The government is acting all righteous and pretending it is an affront to sovereignty that UNMIN is not providing the information it has requested. What is forgotten is that the government is only one part of the peace process," wrote a Nepali Times columnist.

With the current UN mission's mandate scheduled to end in less than two months, and the chances of Nepal producing a new constitution by the May 28 deadline growing ever slimmer due to differences on fundamental issues such as forms of governance and federalism, the peace process is likely to stutter.

To avert a crisis, options now being discussed include an extension of the deadlines by another six months. The other proposal is to issue a shortened constitution, leaving contentious matters in the care of a commission of experts who would later report their recommendations to a newly elected parliament. But no consensus has yet emerged, and one is unlikely in the foreseeable future.

Dhruba Adhikary is a Kathmandu-based journalist.

Pink Everest: Nepal appeals for gay tourists

KATMANDU, Nepal — Nepal wants to paint Mount Everest pink.

It wants gay honeymooners trekking through the Himalayas.

It wants to host the world's highest same-sex wedding at Everest base camp.

But mainly, the conservative Hindu nation wants a chunk of the multibillion dollar gay tourist market to help pull it out of poverty.

That quest — brushing aside historical biases in pursuit of economic opportunity — is symbolic of one of the gay rights movement's most stunning successes.

Just five years ago, police were beating gays and transsexuals in the streets.

Now, the issue of gay rights is almost passe here.

Nepal has an openly gay parliamentarian, it is issuing "third gender" identity cards and it appears set to enshrine gay rights — and possibly even same-sex marriage — in a new constitution.

"(It) is not an issue anymore, for anybody," said Vishnu Adhikari, a 21-year-old lesbian. "Society has basically accepted us."

That acceptance has become a major marketing opportunity for a country cursed by desperate poverty, but blessed with majestic beauty.

Tourism is one of the main drivers of Nepal's economy, worth about $350 million last year, and government officials are determined to double tourism to 1 million visitors next year.

They hope gay tourists will be far more lucrative than the backpackers who stay in cheap hotels here and travel on shoestring budgets.

"They do have a lot of income ... they are high-spending consumers," said Aditya Baral, spokesman for the Nepal Tourism Board. "If they behave well, if they have money, we don't discriminate."

The driving force is Sunil Pant, a member of parliament, the nation's most prominent gay activist and founder of the new Pink Mountain tour company.

The nation's mountains, food and culture are a natural tourist magnet, he said. Additionally, gay tourists could get married at Everest base camp and honeymoon on an elephant safari — though since Nepal doesn't marry foreigners, such weddings would have no legal status, he said.

"With that, money will come here and jobs will be created," he said.

A growing segment of the gay tourism market — worth $63 billion in the U.S. alone — craves adventure travel and exotic locations, especially if they are seen as hospitable to gay travelers, said John Tanzella, president of the International Gay and Lesbian Travel Association.

As for an Everest wedding, "I think there would certainly be a niche within our community that would be very excited for this type of memorable experience," he said.

Pant says Nepal also has a huge advantage in appealing to this niche because its neighbors in South Asia — some of them with laws outlawing homosexual sex — are not seen as gay-friendly destinations.

"There is virtually no competition," he said.

Nepal's own journey into gay acceptance has been a near-revolution, born out of chaos and conflict that decimated the nation's traditional political and social systems.

A few years ago, the kingdom was torn by a civil war between the government and Maoist insurgents, and fighters on both sides preyed on marginalized communities and outcasts.

Transgender men, known as metis or eunuchs, were often robbed, beaten and sometimes raped at Maoist checkpoints, and again at government checkpoints, said Pant, head of the Blue Diamond Society, a gay rights group. Other than the metis, homosexuality was almost never discussed in the rural areas, where tradition pushed people into arranged marriages at a young age, he said.

Then, in 2006, the government signed a peace accord with the Maoists. Street protests forced the king to end his brief grab for absolute power and the centuries old monarchy was abolished.

In 2007, the Supreme Court ordered the government to draw up new laws to protect gay rights.

Now, the gay community stands to win big as the country writes a new constitution aimed at remaking the entire government, turning the nation into a republic and cementing peace.

The government has issued a handful of third gender identity cards. The next census is expected to allow respondents to choose between male, female or third gender.

Parliament is working on a same-sex marriage law even as the constitution drafters are incorporating gay rights into the document expected to be ratified later this year, said Pant.

"It's a land of minorities and we support each other," Pant said. "We all have been marginalized so long and it makes sense that we extend solidarity to each other's rights and issues."

In a sign of how much the nation of 30 million has changed, the gay community faces no real opposition in its fight for expanded rights, said Ameet Dhakal, editor in chief of the Republica daily.

The major parties, battling for votes, see no benefit to alienating a community that Pant says numbers at least 200,000, and religious leaders here generally stay out of politics.

Dev Gurung, a senior Maoist party leader who was once viewed as a strong opponent of gay rights, now publicly supports legal protections for the community.

"People, including lawmakers and government officials, were not aware that people like them even existed in the past," he said.

Homosexuality has now entered the cultural lexicon. There is a weekly TV show called "Third Gender" and writers and filmmakers have begun exploring society's treatment of homosexuals.

Poet Usha Sherchan published a short story last year in a literary magazine about a closeted gay man struggling with the pressure to get married. She thought broaching the subject was a risky move. Instead, she was inundated with praise.

"I was shocked," she said.

Despite the rapid gains, Pant recognizes the nation's sensitivities, and wants to ensure that an influx of gay tourists doesn't turn Nepal into a sex tourism destination.

"They should come for the trekking, mountaineering, the culture, food ... and for weddings, of course," he said.

Nepal malnutrition affecting half of under-fives

By Joanna Jolly

BBC News, Kathmandu

Nearly half of Nepal's children under five are suffering from malnutrition, a report by the Nepalese government says.

The study says there has been steady but slow progress in cutting poverty in the past decade but more needs to be done to tackle poor nutrition.

Health experts says extra attention should be given to Nepalese women before and during pregnancy, and in the first two years of an infant's life.

They say without this a child is likely to have permanent intellectual damage.

National health plan

The report says that nearly half of the country's 1.7 million under-fives are stunted or suffer from chronic malnutrition.

In the past few years Nepal has rolled-out programmes to combat deficiencies in micronutrients - giving children vitamin A supplements and encouraging the purchase of iodized salt.

But health experts say that more needs to be done.

The United Nations Children's Fund is supporting the government to deal with the issue.

Their country representative, Gillian Mellsop, says that the Nepalese government is aware of the long-term consequences of poor nutrition.

"When a child is stunted, it means that they're not going to meet their intellectual potential.

"If you have children well-nourished you're going to have the basis of a population that is ready for school, productive members of society and a really developing Nepal, socially and economically."

The Nepalese government plans to use an already established network of 50,000 female health volunteers to combat malnutrition.

It says it plans to make nutrition a key element of its upcoming national health plan.