Gulmi, June 24 -- In the quiet hills of Gulmi's Rurukshetra Rural Municipality lies Thorga, a village with a 150-year-old legacy of sugarcane cultivation. Here, Kamala Marasini tends to her five ropani (0.25 hectares) of sugarcane fields. This year alone, she earned Rs90,000 from her harvest-an impressive income given this region's problematic history of sugarcane farming.

Sugarcane has long been embedded in Thorga's soil and soul. But until recently, turning it into jaggery was an exhausting ordeal. With most men leaving for jobs abroad, the burden fell on women. They harvested the tall, fibrous stalks by hand, hauled them on their backs, and crushed them using oxen-powered mills.

The extracted juice was then boiled for hours in tradit...