NNo, Apple’s influence high in the Himalayas hasn’t skyrocketed. And yet farmers in the Nepalese mountains will soon be yelling “Siri”. “Siri, come milking,” it could say. Because Yona Khaling Rai wants to spread the old cow breed Siri in her home country again. “The Siris are so much better suited to our mountains than high-yielding cows like the Jerseys,” says the thirty-five-year-old development specialist.
In Godavari Park just outside Kathmandu, he teaches farmers how to respond to rapidly advancing climate change. On the edge of the Kathmandu Moloch, the thirty-hectare forest looks like paradise. “There are leopards and big cats here,” says Rai. Farmers, village elders and scientists show agricultural experts early warning systems against flash floods, refrigerators that work without electricity, or cow sheds that are made of bamboo in a species-appropriate way. “One left his civil service job after we taught him to grow kiwis. Today he is a kiwi farmer,” says Rai.
