Giant Nettles and Hemp grows wild in the remote jungles of Nepal. These plants produce well over 10 million tons of wild fibers every year, less than one percent (1%) of these fibers are collected each year. And only about zero point one percent (0.1%) of those one percent makes it into cash trade.

The math: one percent (1%) of 10 million = 1 Lakh tons = 100’000’000 kilos wild hemp and nettle fibers used in Nepal for ropes, mats, making house and roof, attaching the livestock, grain sacks and some garments. This national consumption comes to about 4.3 kilos per capita per year (estimation).

Cash trade: then some zero point one percent (.01% = 100’000 kilos raw materials) are transformed into cloth and threads of about 35’000 kilos are brought to Kathmandu for sale to handicraft manufacturers = and about 30 tons are eventually exported. That is 30 of the potential 3 million tons going out.

The wild fibers, nettle for example, can also be wild crafted and helped to return to the community forests where they would be closer than the current average 6 hours walk from the village to the sources of the wild fibers. This could bring an estimated 5 million tons or free raw materials into the easy reach of remote villages all across Nepal.

These would still be wild fibers, fibers from outside the food chain, as they are not infringing on cultivatable lands able to support food production; neither are they competing with food or fodder crops for irrigation waters, when well managed.

Carpets are Nepal’s largest export, about 30’000 tons per annum ~ all (95%) of the raw materials are from New Zeeland. Nepali wild nettle carpets are being sold in Switzerland for 500 Euros M2 retail! New Zeeland wool carpets are selling here for $30/M2 and nettle for $60/M2.

Currently there are standing orders from many international carpet buyers to many nepali carpet producers for full containers of nettle carpets all totaling 50 tons, but the threads are not available on the market. If the threads were available the orders would triple in a month.

These carpets are attractive to the natural product oriented consumer; these carpets are knotted and exported without dyes, all in natural color. This will also be a relief for the waterways of Nepal and those people who wash and cook from them. All of the processing in fact can be realized in the remote mountains and only the ready threads for the carpet knotting brought down to the factories.

The biodynamic processing of the fibers using microorganisms can be realized without firewood or chemicals and on a micro village level. The overflow of these low-tech fiber-processing plants makes excellent fertilizer therefore the processing plant is situated at the top of the best food land close to the village. This process does not pollute or deplete raw materials; it fertilizes growing more and better food without extra work with feeding cows for dung everyday.

There are minimum 10’000 million people living in Nepal without roads or electricity, the lack of commerce and development means they have nearly zero cash flow; everything moves with barter and trade, not only commodities but also labor. Due to the absence of any transportation infrastructure other than rugged foot paths, any sustainable market trade can only be established with non fragile and labor intensive products worth minimum 160 Rupees per kilo; 50 kilos = 8’000 rupees.

Many of the wild fiber sources are 8 to 20 days round trip down to the road head and back home. A lot can be done to bring the wild fibers sources closer to the villages without infringing on the food chain. However, for those very remote villages, the nettle is often the only thing they have which all their down neighbors don’t have; in short the wild giant nettle of Nepal has been reserved by the Gods as the genetic savior of the very remote jungles of Nepal. Today, a kilo of this fiber, knotted into a carpet sells for 90 Euros retail in the West.

Nettle carpet yarns are easily sold here in Kathmandu for 320 – 500 Rupees per kilo; this leaves easy access for traders and middlemen touring the mountains to collect door to door the fruit of thousands of ladies part time work over the recent months. The remote footpaths and roads must be safe and secure first.

Nettle threads mixed with cotton for textile is another avenue of development only just recently started by Wild Fibers Company in Thamel, Kathmandu. This is another potential export boom if the availability and thread quality could be improved. Development of the nettle textile industry in Nepal is another way of both: improving a sectors exports of garment and textile; And keeping more of that markets profit here at home in Nepal.

The two largest industries of Nepal: Carpet and Garment, have their raw material source outside of Nepal, New Zeeland carpet wool and Indian cotton. All Nepal can add is labor. Reality is the exiled Tibetans have given the labor in the carpet factories to poor nepali people; and the garment/textile industry is greatly dominated by the Indians, even if they are living in Nepal for generations, still much of the labor is also from India.

So, if foreigners, from a Nepali viewpoint, have the main industries tied up at least the remote backbone of Nepal can supply the raw materials for these industries. Channeling the 100 million New Zeeland wool dollars up into the middle mountains and exporting the nettle carpet for 60$ up from the wool average of 30$ would effect the life of millions of Nepali people in the middle mountains. If the roads are secure and the transport infrastructure, what there is of it, can be maintained.

In my expert opinion the development of the nettle fiber industry in Nepal could double the national GNP all across Nepal in just 4 years; it could quadruple it in maybe ten years. Not only more and better paying jobs using traditional skills but local jobs and more food and less pollution.

No doubt the best poverty alleviation methods are using raw materials from outside the human food chain for remote labor-intensive handicraft export products. The key is NOT electrification and roads for the backlands of Nepal, the key is a sustainable low impact natural product worth enough $ by kilo to make it worthwhile to walk out. Handspun carpet yarns and textile threads are the perfect product.

Fiber market development, future possibilities:

export of machine made nettle textile threads and textiles;
export of nettle and hemp paper and pulp.

A thousand years ago European nettle gave birth to:

Muslins ~ see through, sheer, the finest of cloths.
Crepe ~ ultra fine and textured cloth.
Satin ~ brushed till it shines.
Lace ~ intricate designs knotted with high quality threads.
Velvet ~ a micro carpet weave.

The extreme high quality of the nettle fiber and the possibility of spinning finer and finer threads gave rise to an elite fashion which only the very wealthy land owners, Feudal Lords, Aristocrats and Royalty could afford. These textile traditions demanded hundreds of hours of skilled craftsmanship per square meter. The quality of ones clothes and the ability to change them frequently set the status quos of the Society through the dark and Middle Ages; Nettle was King. Then Marco Polo introduced silk and the silk route opened up to supply European Nobility with the accessories of their status. A status Symbol first established with nettles and later refined and rarified with silks.

Nettle spinning in Nepal is an unbroken tradition since before written history. Today in very remote Nepal we find men, women and children wearing nettle clothes and from the school bag to the grain sack; from the loom of the “sokul”, traditional rice mat, to the ropes used to hold together the roof and walls of the temporary animal shelters for the high altitude Shepard’s ~ the giant nettle fiber of Nepal is King.