Every year, thousands of Nepalese spend several months each year picking the “yarsagumba”, also known as the “caterpillar mushroom”. This product is composed of a mycelium that parasitizes the larvae of moths living in the Himalayan soil at altitudes above 3000 meters. The fungus kills and mummifies the caterpillar and then a stroma grows from the head of the caterpillar, ensuring the reproductive cycle.
Maikot is a village situated in the northwestern Nepalese province of Rukum, a remote himalayan enclave with steep terrain and no proper roads. When yarsagumba is ready to be picked, during a two month window every spring, harvesters of every age and walks of life quit their work, fields, schools and leave everything behind hoping to be successful in their mushroom quest.
A caravan of young women carrying heavy loads hike up their last day of ascension before reaching the camp. The thousands of Nepalese harvesters come from all over the country. Some travel a few days, others a few weeks, but all have to brave the harsh climate, the dangerous terrain, and face the dangers of altitude sickness that takes lives every year.
Nepalese queue to cross a rest area where food and tea are served by local families and where animals can drink before continuing their journey. The harvest is administered by the communities surrounding the high pastureland. Each village chooses one representative to sit on the Season Management Committee, whose members are responsible for delivering harvesting permits, deciding on the opening date, and providing security along the way.
Among the families that will spend two months camping in high altitude, many of them are not planning on searching for yarsagumbas, but rather profiting from this special economic opportunity to set up their businesses under a tent. They will lock up their shops in the village, pack up their mules with as much commodities and foods as possible and go sell everything at high camp where they can raise their prices.
Yarsagumbas are used in traditional Chinese medicine for their aphrodisiac virtues. They became popular with the general public in 1993 after two Olympian women attributed their world records for long-distance running to high altitude training and the consumption of “caterpillar mushrooms”.
From there, increased demand in China created new economic opportunities for the Nepalese people. A deep craze for picking has emerged as a modern-day gold rush. While some have managed to get rich in recent years, the future looks less promising.
Over-harvesting and climate change are hindering the reproduction of the species. The quantities of yarsagumba continue to decrease each season to the point where the resource is in danger of being depleted.
It is also the whole of an ancestral way of life that has been shaken. Entire villages that were then self-sufficient have become dependent on a resource that is only consumed abroad.
Yarsagumba is a hybrid between an insect and a fungus. In early spring, after having spent the winter underground, the caterpillar Thitarodes emerges to eat. This is when the Ophiocordyceps Sinensis, a powerful endoparasite, strikes its host. It invades its body by taking control of its immune system, kills it and grows out of its head. This organism is known across the West as cordyceps, as pinyin in China, and as yarsagumba in Nepal and Tibet, which literally translates as “worm in the winter, grass in the summer”.
At the end of a long day, the pickers come back to camp and go straight to a trader who will evaluate the quality of their caterpillar mushrooms and buy them for a meager sum. In previous years, some pickers had developed the habit of bidding all their capital in games at night. For this reason, card games and gambling have been banished from the camp, which remains under constant policing.
For Lalita Gharti Magar, the yarsagumba harvest is a special moment. Four years ago when she was 18, she met her soon-to-be husband in this exact pastureland. At the end of the season, they eloped and married against their parents’ will. This year, they went back home after a week because of the scarcity of the resource.
Dhakal Bishwo Karma has been a yarsagumba trader for years. With the help of his family, he sets up a small shop at camp where he also sells a wide variety of goods and commodities. When the harvest is done, he journeys to the closest landing strip, where the kilos of yarsagumbas will be flown to Kathmandu and then to China. At the very core of this chain of production-consumption, a real inequality persists. At camp, traders like him buy one good piece of product for 6 $CA. In Kathmandu, it will be sold for about CA$20 000 per kilo, and in China, the retailers will sell it for about CA$2 000 per ounce (above CA$70 000 per kilo).
As Maude Plante-Husaruk, who documented the harvest period for several weeks, explains, the integration into the world market and the arrival of large amounts of capital in the communities have upset the entire collective organization: “These are regions that were completely disconnected from the road and air networks. Then all of a sudden, money was injected into them, which profoundly changed the economic structure. This had a ripple effect and affected several cultural and social aspects. People no longer buy locally produced goods. You become dependent on another way of life. We want to be part of this new globalized context, the modernization of life, when the resources are not really there. So they have to import them.
In this sense, the dynamics mobilizing around the yarsagumbas highlight the balance of forces governing world markets.
According to Maude Plante-Husaruk: “What struck me was the immense socio-economic disparity between the harvesters, Nepalese merchants, Chinese merchants and consumers. We are literally at the two socio-economic poles. The disparity could not be greater than that. …] The resource is so expensive, an ounce is sold for between a thousand and two thousand US dollars. This highlights the dynamics of a globalized capitalist economy where the people at the base of production are subject to the laws of globalized supply and demand and completely disconnected from their reality. »
Sitting inside a makeshift restaurant, three young Nepalese wait for their plate of momos (tibetan dumplings) and their glass of rakshi (local wine). The caravans of Nepalese going back and forth between the villages and the camp use these establishments to grab a bite, get news from relatives and rest a bit before taking the road back.
After a long day of harvest, villagers from different regions compete during a friendly volleyball game. The camp itself is in effect a small scale village. The mood is friendly and jovial; it’s a moment to play, gossip and bond with each other. Amongst other things, one can find restaurants, hotels, butcheries, shops, an infirmary, a volleyball field, but also a cell phone recharge post and a cinema, both powered by a generator.
Maude Plante-Husaruk
Maude Plante-Husaruk est une photographe et réalisatrice documentaire canadienne s'intéressant aux réalités des populations recluses ou marginalisées, sensible à la résilience de l’humain devant l’adversité. Interpellée depuis dix ans par les cultures isolées du sous-continent indien et d'Asie centrale, elle met en image des histoires inspirantes et profondément humaines, espérant sensibiliser les gens aux dénominateurs communs qui pavent notre existence et détiennent un pouvoir rassembleur. Motivée par le désir d'approfondir la maîtrise de son art, Maude continue de travailler sur plusieurs projets long terme dans la région.
Alexis Aubin
Alexis Aubin a étudié les communications à l’UdeM et la photographie au collège Marsan. Que ce soit comme photojournaliste ou en tant que communicateur pour des organismes humanitaires, il utilise les médias afin de sensibiliser et informer sur les défis auxquels nous devons faire face collectivement.
