Word: farmerly
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...Their enthusiasm, however misguided, is understandable. Nepal's decade-long insurgency hollowed the country's development, leaving nearly half of its population living below the poverty line and an average Nepali farmer earning roughly $300 a year. By contrast, Gurkha privates in the British army take home $28,000 a year. "Becoming a Gurkha soldier is a burning ambition for every hill boy," said Tamang's father, Saharman Tamang, 50, who served the British army for 12 years. "Those who make it are hailed as the 'lucky ones.' Money is not the only draw. Those recruited are whisked away...
...elder Tamang, who worked as a farmer before he became a soldier, doubts Nepal will ever achieve a total ban on Gurkha recruitment. If the recruitment is stopped, Nepal's flailing economy will take a hit; each year, the country receives $1.1 billion in remittances - nearly 18% of the national GDP - from the Gurkhas and other 2 million Nepalis serving abroad. Even with its new democratically elected government, there is no guarantee how long peace will last in a still fractious Nepalese society. "If Nepal was politically stable and there were enough jobs," says Saharman Tamang, "our young men would...
...population," he says. "Why are we denying the masses comforts that we enjoy today?" There are millions of other families still in India, still piled onto motorcycles, who have asked themselves that question. "It's difficult to carry my entire family on a bike," says Jyotirmoy Sarkar, a rice farmer in a village 72 miles (116 km) from Kolkata. "For people like me with limited means but big dreams, Nano is a dream come true." That's a big order for a small...
...sets of four or six, they squat between dead-straight rows of trees awash in blossoms. (A walk through an almond orchard in early March is not unlike a stroll past a department-store perfume counter.) From afar, the boxes look as if they might provide a weary farmer a place to sit or store his tools. But get close enough under the right conditions--dry, above 55°, no more than a light breeze--and you can hear and see one of the most vital relationships in modern American agriculture: the droning dance of honey bees feasting on almond pollen...
...says, "and I'm not about to learn." Three years of record yields have depressed almond prices to half their peak; many growers will be lucky to break even this year. Meanwhile, a drought led Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to declare a state of emergency on Feb. 27. Some almond farmers didn't even rent bees this year, figuring they wouldn't have enough water to irrigate their trees all summer. Ironically, it's been rainy around Hughson, cutting hours for active pollination short. This area's almond crop may suffer. Regardless, growers have few choices...