Gulmi turns the tide on sugarcane farming

A cooperative has revived the crop with modern tools, but Tarai farmers still face delayed payments and low earnings.

In the quiet hills of Gulmi’s Rurukshetra Rural Municipality lies Thorga, a village with a 150-year-old legacy of sugarcane cultivation. Here, Kamala Marasini tends to her five ropani (0.25 hectares) of sugarcane fields. This year alone, she earned Rs90,000 from her harvest—an impressive income given this region’s problematic history of sugarcane farming.