Promoting Farming : Amidst Farmers

Rice is a popular cereal grain of Nepal. Ropain in Nepali means rice planting. Therefore, The “Ropain Festival” of Nepal is one of the country’s most important monsoon season festival that symbolizes the first planting of the crop(rice-plant). It is celebrated mostly by farmers of Nepal to mark the day they plant new seedlings of rice crop of the year in their paddies. It is known as Ashar 15 or the fifteenth of Ashar - the day when the crop planting season officially begins. The month of Ashar (June-July) grips a great significance for every Nepali as it is the time of the year when farmers plant new seedlings of rice crops in their paddies wishing to grow quintals of rice from kilos.

Farmers from all over Nepal get to their muddy wet fields with a new and positive enthusiasm. It is a time for rice plantation ceremony and celebrating, dancing, splashing muddy water along with the friends and relatives singing Ashare Jhyaure Geet (monsoon song) reciting the joys and sorrows of farmers.

The festival is celebrated by the offering a feast of delicious local cuisines along with the Dahi-Chiura (beaten-rice with yogurt) and home-made brew.

Nepal celebrates Rice Planting Festival to symbolize the first planting of the crop for the season!

Women are involved in planting the rice plant and men plow the field, usually. Nepal’s government has declared this day as National Paddy Day, to encourage farmers and celebrate the crop planting festival. Rice is very major food among Nepalese as well as South Asian people. Famers go to the field, play with the mud and water, dance, sing and plant rice and eat the beaten-rice with yogurt. The young ones share the songs with love.

Every summer, as the rain drops drizzled in the valley, it is time to celebrate the rice planting (ropain). With the elevation of technological development, rice plantation process has been easy and improved and generally replaced by the modern technologies. However, there are many places in Nepal where the rice planting festival is celebrated in a grand way paying the tribute to the culture and tradition of Nepal.

Over the past few years, Ropain Festival has fascinated a large number of visitors and international travelers, as it is one of the many great aspects of cultural exploration for them. Enthusiastic tourists often take part in these celebrations in the company of welcoming locals, getting in touch with their earthly existence. The festival reveals the relationship of humans and the land. Hundreds of visitors and foreigners from all over the world participate in this festival along with the local farmers in muddy wet fields of Khokana, Kritipur, Bhaktapur, and Lalitpur and in the southern skirts of Kathmandu Valley to enjoy and experience an authentic Nepali culture and tradition.

Come on, participate in the Ropain festival, and mingle with the locals playing with the wet mud and taking part in local traditions in the Kathmandu valley. The Newari feast delights your enjoyment throughout the day. Touch the earth; sow the rice sapling; jump, sing, dance and enjoy capturing the moments.

This year, the Rice Planting Festival is celebrated on 29 June 2018 (Ashar 15)