Indian vegetable prices tightened, farmers in Banke get market

Kathmandu. Farmers in Banke district have been attracted to commercial vegetable farming after they started getting good market price. Sujita Sharma, acting chief agriculture extension officer at Agriculture Knowledge Centre, Banke, said that farmers who were involved in subsistence farming in the past have now started vegetable farming commercially.

According to him, around

13 metric tonnes of vegetables are produced annually on 6,352 hectares of land in Banke. The Agriculture Knowledge Centre has distributed seeds of winter vegetables like bottle gourd, bitter gourd, bitter gourd and other vegetables to 1,350 farmers under the Women and Children Nutrition Improvement Programme.

BANKE: Vegetables produced by farmers in Banke district are being sold at a good price after the government imposed strict customs on vegetables imported from India.

Sharma said that the attraction of farmers towards vegetable farming as a cash crop has increased in recent period.

In Banke district, farmers have been engaged in commercial vegetable farming in different villages of Duduwa Rural Municipality-6, Himiniya, Nepalgunj Sub-Metropolitan City-14, Bhawaniyapur (17), Parsapur (19), Basudevpur (19), Puraini (21) and Puraina (22).

Gopi Yadav, a farmer of Nepalgunj-19, said that many farmers in the village have started vegetable farming.

“Earlier, one had to travel long distances to sell vegetables, but now the number of farmers involved in vegetable farming in the village has increased as they are being sold at good price from their farms,” he said.

Local farmers, who could not compete with the cheaper vegetables imported from India, are now getting better prices for their produce.

Motisara Thapa Chhetri, chairperson of the Ranitalau Agricultural Produce Market Board of Directors of Nepalgunj, said that farmers in Banke district have got a market after the enforcement of customs duty on vegetables imported from India.

According to him, vegetables produced in Banke are now being supplied to Ranitalo Bazaar of Nepalgunj.

The domestic agricultural products have got market due to the provision of customs duty on vegetables imported from India. Traders have reduced the import of agricultural products from India as it would be costlier to import agricultural products by paying customs duty.

At present, the market of Nepalgunj is thriving with the commercial crops of cauliflower, cabbage, bottle gourd, cucumber, beans, tomato, chillies and other agricultural products produced commercially by the farmers of Banke.

Jalaluddin Bagwan, a farmer of Puraina village in Nepalgunj Sub-Metropolitan City-21, said that they have got good price for vegetables after the decrease in imports.

He said that in the past, even when it was taken to the market, it was sold at a cheap price, but now it is being sold at a good price from the farm.