Mithu Karki has not had a chance to attend a beauty pageant so far. At least not the kind involving pretty women. But on May 12 she was involved in another kind of beauty contest: the one for buffalos. When Kar­ki reached Hawaai Chowk in the south-eastern Nepali town of Itahari early on the morning of May 12, she was accompanied by Hira, the buffalo her family has had for six years. Several other buffalos had been brought there. There were 38 of them to be precise, all cleaned up and adorned. The occasion was a beauty pageant of sorts. For buffa­los. There were some onlookers too.

 

The judges of the ‘Buffalo Beauty Contest’ were veterinarians and oth­er technicians from the District Live­stock Service Office. The assessment criteria were the buffalos’ height, gait, udders, the amount of milk they produce, etc. Hira won the first prize and bagged Rs 11,000. Her nearest competitor was a buffalo belonging to Nara Bahadur Karki.

 

A resident of Rajdevi Tol, Mithu and her family have been rearing buffaloes for the past 10 years. For the most part, Mithu looks after Hira; she gives 12 liters of milk daily. “We manage our household expens­es from the money the milk fetch­es,” said Mithu’s husband Bharat. “We also invest part of the earning in taking care of Hira.”

 

“We organized the contest to encourage buffalo farmers,” said Tanka Dahal, chairperson of the organizing institute, Batawaran Ra Paryawaran Samrackchan Kend­ra Nepal, an NGO. “It’s relatively easier to rear cows than buffalos, so the number of cow farmers has increased in recent times. But cows yield less milk than buffalos. So we want to incentivize farmers to rear buffalos,” said Dahal.

 

By  HIMAL DAHAL | Itahari