Nepal’s brick workers – rooted in remote, rugged districts – navigate livelihoods that have long hinged on seasonality. The COVID-19 shock showed their remarkable adaptability: moving toward agricultural work when bricks ceased to burn.

In the shadow of roaring brick kilns, a quieter but transformative story is unfolding across Nepal’s remote hills. In their recent paper published in Frontiers in Sociology, researchers Sugat B. Bajracharya, Kamala Gurung, and Simran Silpakar delve into how brick workers from the districts of Rolpa, Salyan, and Dang are increasingly turning to agriculture – amid seasons of uncertainty and pandemics – as a mainstay for survival.

Nepal’s brick industry – valued at several million dollars and employing approximately 300,000 workers – thrives during its limited work season. But that very seasonality forces workers into a cycle of migration: to the kilns during high season, and back home when demand wanes.

Driven by these seasonal fluctuations, brick workers – and their households – often stitch together multiple forms of income. Many migrate to India, engage in construction, farm labour, or subsistence agriculture to bridge the lean months.

Mapping Livelihood Determinants

The research team deployed a sustainable livelihood framework, analysing four types of “capital” that shape livelihood decisions: natural (land, livestock), financial (access to institutions), physical (market proximity), and human (education, training, household labour). The model tracked 500 households across the three study areas and revealed compelling patterns:

• A rise in household size, cultivable land, livestock, local markets, and education correlated with higher odds of choosing agriculture as a primary income source – respectively increasing likelihoods by 2 per cent, 15 per cent, 5 per cent, and 26 per cent.

Still, agriculture remained largely a fallback – not a fully viable livelihood – due to limited landholdings and challenging terrain.

COVID-19: A Turning Point

The COVID-19 pandemic and associated lockdowns (March–July 2020 and April–August 2021) dealt a sharp blow – but also triggered a form of survival innovation. During the first lockdown, 65 per cent of workers remained in kilns amid uncertainty; only 15 per cent engaged in agriculture, while 10 per cent were unemployed.

Between lockdowns, workers mostly returned to their villages. Agriculture uptake rose to 39 per cent, while only 14 per cent continued kiln work – and 15 per cent were out of work. During the second lockdown, agricultural work remained strong at 30 per cent, supplemented by non-farm labour at 37 per cent and kiln employment down to 18 per cent.

These shifts underscore how crises like COVID can push marginalized workers toward local, available options – even when those options are barely viable.

Challenges and Opportunities

The terrain and land fragmentation in Rolpa, Salyan, and Dang present structural barriers: fragmented small holdings make commercial farming difficult, and lack of reliable markets further restricts value realization.

Still, interventions offer hope. The GOAL project, backed by Australian Aid, promotes vegetable and goat farming in Runtigadhi, Rolpa, in collaboration with local government and NGOs. Meanwhile, the Holeri Collection Centre – revived through USAID’s KISAN project – intends to connect farmers with markets, though consistent operations remain elusive due to management challenges.

Building Resilience Through Diversification

The study’s key argument: livelihood resilience hinges on expanding viable, non-seasonal opportunities. Workers need skills – in agriculture, livestock, and beyond – and infrastructural support to transition from diversification borne of necessity to purposeful, stable incomes.

Vocational training, land leasing arrangements with cooperatives, and sustainable market mechanisms are among the proposed solutions to bolster long-term capacity.

Limitations and Next Steps

The authors note certain constraints: livestock counts weren’t analysed by animal type or standardized units, informal financial access wasn’t deeply explored, and findings may not extend to all informal worker groups. These gaps offer directions for future research into intersecting vulnerabilities and livelihood dynamics.

Nepal’s brick workers – rooted in remote, rugged districts – navigate livelihoods that have long hinged on seasonality. The COVID-19 shock showed their remarkable adaptability: moving toward agricultural work when bricks ceased to burn. But enduring transformation demands more than resilience; it requires structural support – land access, market systems, skill development – to shift from precarious survival strategies to sustainable livelihoods.

As Bajracharya and colleagues conclude, building a resilient future for brick workers means empowering them to diversify with dignity – not just out of necessity, but with viable choices.