Dhan Khumari Adhikari never saw it coming. On Saturday, April 25, 2015, the 32-year-old farmer and mom was outside her hilltop home in Tripureshwor, Nepal, about to feed her buffalo, when she felt what she described as “a breeze.” A moment later, the ground heaved and the nearby houses collapsed.

Among the things the family lost were the seeds that they had been saving to plant their next rice crop. In Nepal, where more than two-thirds of people rely on agriculture for their livelihood, lost seeds can be a serious setback. “We did have rice seeds stored, but we could not find them in what was left of our destroyed house,” said Adhikari’s neighbor Bishnu Kandel, 45. “They are really important for us.”

Together with a local organization called the Small Farmer Agricultural Cooperative Federation, Oxfam provided each family with about 44 pounds of rice seeds—enough to yield about 1,322 pounds of rice to eat and sell in the coming year. The farmers themselves chose the types of seeds that Oxfam provided.

“I came here with my friends to get the seeds, so that I can sow a new crop before the monsoon,” said Sanu Thapa, 63, who walked for three hours to reach the distribution site. “We will help one another to take them home.”

With their housing situation still uncertain, Adhikari said her family was just beginning to think about the future. “We have to keep going,” she said. “We have to work.”

Photo Credit: Jes Aznar / Oxfam