Frenchman breaks cliché in Nepal

The LA times wrote on January 22^nd, “Reporting from Chandeshwori, Nepal — Francois Driard enters a cave dug into the steep Himalayan hillside, scares off a mouse and, in a twice-weekly ritual, wipes mold from several plate-sized wheels of cheese sitting on crude shelves against the wall.

Voila! High-end French cheese has reached a new level, literally, with Driard's farm an hour from Kathmandu, where the 32-year-old has become what he believes is the only French cheese maker in the Himalayas.”

            Breaking the Nepalese stereotype thinking about agriculture, Driard has been working in his own farm in Tokha. At the times when agriculture is looked down upon, he has made a good example out of himself. He, as of now, owns 21 cows, 12 rabbits, sheep, goats, pigs, ducks and chickens. He looks forward to buying new land and a bigger farm! He has employed 6 people along with a Polish intern and another foreigner.

It was not that Driard came to Nepal for cheese production. His aim was to live in Himalayas only but earning a living from cheese production was a second thought. He had not even dreamed that his pungent afterthought could make him the Cheese King in Kathmandu.  Studying from French business school, Driard, who had been visiting Nepal since 18 years of age, spent three years in reading and writing business articles, but never liked the office jobs. An entrepreneur-mind Driard then decided to move to Nepal and introduced French cheese there. He justified that traditional cheese making business would do wonders in an area, which has frequent power cuts and bad infrastructure. He said he came to Nepal and loved the nature here and so, settled down!

           The 5 star hotels of the Kathmandu now use his cheese and also some of them are exported to western countries mainly Europe. He says in an interview, “The Nepalese people have a tendency to look to the government with expectations rather than starting something of their own.” It seems right at a first glance. 

The vast majority of the economically active population (81.2%), particularly in rural Nepal, is engaged in agriculture and allied industries. Even then, the harvest is painfully little because of the natural causes, lack of technology and irrigation and also because the upper region of Nepal is not very fertile. People toil day and night for very little. And even whatever is harvested doesn’t get the right price or doesn’t get to the people on time due to lack of proper means of communication, transportation and storage. For example, the grade-A apples from Jumla are wasted yearly in large sums, when there is a big potential market in Thailand and Malaysia.  (http://www.ekantipur.com/the-kathmandu-post/2010/09/23/money/thailand-malaysia-potential-markets-for-jumla-apples/213099/)  

So even though Driard’s right in his way about the people and that he has been an icon of entrepreneurship in Nepal , it is very hard when it comes to uneducated, rural people who don’t even have education, electricity or running water, let alone the banks and loans.