Poor people in Nepal changed their lives by providing Japanese shrubs to make paper for printing money

A shrub growing on impoverished Nepalese hillsides is providing the raw materials to make banknotes used in Asia's most complex financial system.

The scenery is breathtaking in this corner of eastern Nepal, between the world's highest mountains and the tea plantations of India's Darjeeling district, where rare orchids bloom and red pandas play on the slopes. Lush hillsides.

The argeli tree grows wild in the Himalayas. Before Japan started buying it to make money, the main use of the argeli tree in Nepal was as firewood or fencing. (Photo: NYT).

But human life can still be difficult. Wild animals destroy the corn and potatoes of Pasang Sherpa, a farmer born and raised near Mount Everest. He gave up those plants about a decade ago and switched to growing a seemingly worthless plant : argeli - a yellow-flowered shrub that grows wild in the Himalayas. Farmers often grow it for fencing or firewood.

At first, Mr. Pasang had no idea that the bark peeled from his argeli tree would one day turn into money. It's the result of an unusual trade: one of Asia's poorest regions supplies the main money-making ingredient in its richest economy.

Japanese yen money is printed on special paper that cannot be produced domestically anymore . The Japanese love old-fashioned yen bills and this year they need mountains of new ones, so Mr. Pasang and his neighbors have a lucrative reason to hang on to their hillside.

Pasang said: 'I never thought these raw materials would be exported to Japan or that I would make money from this plant. And now I'm so happy'.

The workers Mr. Pasang hired to plant and harvest argeli trees. (Photo: NYT).

4,500km from Pasang's home turf, in Osaka, Kanpou Incorporated produces paper used by the Japanese government for official purposes. One of Kanpou's philanthropic activities has been surveying the foothills of the Himalayas since the 1990s to help local farmers dig wells. And by chance, they found a solution to Japan's problem.

Supplies of mitsumata, the traditional paper used to print Japanese yen money, are running out. The pulp from which it is made is extracted from trees of the Thymelaeaceae family, growing in highlands, with moderate sunlight and well-drained water. But rural population decline and climate change are forcing Japanese farmers to abandon these crop lands.

Yen money is made from pulp harvested from trees in the Thymelaeaceae family. (Photo: Mainichi).

The president of Kanpou at that time knew that mitsumata originated from the Himalayas. After years of testing, the company discovered that argeli, a hardier relative, grows wild in Nepal. Farmers here just need to be instructed on how to care for them to meet Japan's strict standards.

A quiet revolution took place after an earthquake devastated much of Nepal in 2015. The Japanese sent experts to Kathmandu to help Nepali farmers participate in the process of creating cool yen bills. cold, sturdy.

Initially, Mr. Pasang started the business and produced 1.2 tons of tree bark per year. He cut the tree bark himself and boiled it in wooden barrels.

But then the Japanese taught him how to steam tree bark using plastic bundles and metal tubes. Next comes the painstaking process of stripping, beating, stretching and drying. The Japanese also instruct their Nepali suppliers to harvest only three years after planting, before the bark turns red.

Workers strip bark from argeli trees in Nepal. (Photo: NYT).

Workers dry argeli tree bark in Ilam district, eastern Nepal. Thousands of miles away, in Japan, this tree bark will be used to make yen banknotes (Photo: NYT).

This year, Mr. Pasang hired 60 local Nepalis to handle the harvest and expects to earn 8 million Nepali rupees, equivalent to $60,000, in profit. (According to the World Bank, the average annual income in Nepal is about $1,340.) He hopes to produce 20 of the 140 tons of paper materials that Nepal will ship to Japan.

That's the number of mitsumata needed to print enough yen to fill about seven shipping containers, downhill to the Indian port of Kolkata, and then by 40-day train to Osaka.

Mr. Shreshta, who is fluent in Japanese, said: 'As a Nepali, I feel proud to manage the raw materials to print money from rich countries like Japan. It was a great moment for me.'

This is also an important time for the Japanese yen. Every 20 years, the third most traded currency in the world is redesigned. The current notes were first printed in 2004 and replacement notes will reach cashiers next July.

The new banknote that Japan will issue this year, is made of paper from the bark of the argeli tree. (Photo: Kyodo News/Getty Images).

The Japanese love beautiful banknotes with elegant, sophisticated designs in moiré printed on tough, off-white plant fibers instead of cotton or polymer.

The yen is also an exception in Asia. Just under 40% of payments in Japan are processed by card, code or phone, while in Korea the figure is about 94%. Even for Japan, where life is increasingly less about cash; The value of the country's banknotes in circulation has peaked in 2022.

The Bank of Japan reassures people that, if they exchange an old yen bill for a new one, they still ensure enough physical currency in circulation. If the banknotes were stacked in one place, they would be 1,840km high, which is 491 times higher than Mount Fuji.