“I am the researcher building the bridge agriculture has been missing.”
I am Kamana Kafle, an agricultural researcher, science communicator, poet, and the creator of AgriGirl. My work lives at the intersection of rigorous research, grassroots farming, and the art of storytelling, and I have spent my career proving that all three belong in the same sentence.
AgriGirl was not just a brand I created, it was a response. A response to the gap I saw between university laboratories and the farmers who needed the science inside the field, and between policy rooms in Kathmandu and the fields those policies were written for. When COVID-19 locked the world indoors, I became determined to make agricultural knowledge accessible, honest, and human.
That instinct led me to build Kamana Agricultural Solution and Research Centre in 2021, where I led a team of 13 researchers, trained more than 500 farmers in soil health and regenerative practices, and helped connect hundreds of unbanked families to the credit and grants from which they had been excluded.
It has since carried me from feasibility research for Nepal's Ministry of Agriculture to keynote stages at global summits and panels with the United Nations Environment Programme and the Food and Agriculture Organization, always making the same argument: agriculture deserves to be treated as serious, modern, and worthy of the world's best minds. In 2023, I launched Nepal's first agriculture-focused podcast, The Kamana Talks.
Beyond the field, I am a poet and essayist. I write in Nepali and English through a column called The Kamana Writes, about the land, identity, love and its bitterness, and what it costs to leave home and rebuild yourself somewhere new.
I believe the best scientists are also the best storytellers: data convinces the mind, but stories move people to act. I refuse to choose between the microscope and the microphone.
I am currently a Distinguished Doctoral Fellow pursuing my PhD in agricultural sciences, deepening my research in agricultural leadership and farmer-centred knowledge systems, with a growing body of published research behind me.
And I am still building AgriGirl, one video, one poem, one farm visit, and one conversation at a time, because the future of agriculture will not be won in the laboratory alone. It will be won by people bold enough to bring the laboratory to the land, and the land to the world.
A reverse-chronological journey through research, agricultural leadership, communication, and public service.
Completes her Master’s in Agriculture and begins her PhD at the University of Arkansas as a Distinguished Doctoral Fellow, deepening her research in agricultural leadership and farmer-centred knowledge systems while continuing to grow AgriGirl.
Earns the Academic Excellence Award with a perfect 4.0. Joins the Zhang Lab as a Research Assistant on sustainable water disinfection and wins a $7,500 Riceland Scholar grant for zero-waste rice-hull research. Presents at the Arkansas GIS Users Forum, earns her FAA drone certification, keynotes the Online Work Africa Summit, and wins first place at the university for observational research.
Serves from March to July as Executive Director of MDAC Sports, running Nepal’s A Division football league. By August, she is on a plane to Arkansas, beginning her Master’s in Agriculture at Arkansas State University as a Graduate Assistant and teaching Geospatial Data Applications.
Founds Nepal’s first agriculture-focused podcast on agricultural leadership and wins a $6,000 FAO grant for a nine-episode collaboration. Keynotes the World Food Forum’s youth advocacy masterclass and coordinates ICIMOD’s Krishi Doot pilot, reconnecting Nepal’s agricultural value chain through youth envoys.
Leads a team of 13 researchers through precision-agriculture trials and Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock Development–commissioned feasibility studies on export crops. Trains 500+ farmers in soil health and regenerative practices over the next two years.
Completes her B.Sc. (Honors) in Agriculture. Interns at the Nepal Agricultural Research Council, collecting socioeconomic data for national policy work. Co-authors a study on COVID-19’s impact on Nepal’s Sustainable Development Goals, published in Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems.
Designs and leads agricultural entrepreneurship training programs and is named a Next Generation Leader by Consumers International, the sole representative from Nepal in the network.
Officially recognized nationally for youth leadership and advocacy in agriculture. In the same year, she serves as Hult Prize Campus Director, works as a public-speaking trainer, and organizes youth agriculture dialogues, the beginning of a lifelong habit of turning the microphone toward farmers.
Enrolls at HICAST, Purbanchal University, Kathmandu, and is elected Class Representative, a role she holds for two years.
Follow Kamana's essays, agricultural conversations, research updates, and public work across her active platforms.