Farmers in pockets of Kapilvastu's Buddhabhumi Municipality are being forced to leave tomatoes and cabbages rotting in their fields as market prices plummet and buyers disappear. According to news reports coming from Kapilvastu, the farmers are not prepared to sell their produce at unacceptably low prices set by the middlemen and traders. The farm prices range from Rs 5 to Rs 10, which the farmers think does not even bear the cost of plucking from the vines. A bumper harvest makes no sense if it doesn't fetch return on investments. Farmers say they would rather let the produce rot in the fertile fields of the district, and that is precisely what they are doing. Estimates have it that tomatoes worth over Rs 10 million have been left to rot in the fields across nine villages including Deupura, Mathuranagar, Lauharaula, Dharmapur, Harahawa, Shivpur, Motinagar, Gagani, and Chetaradei. An estimated 150 farmers have cultivated tomatoes across 70 hectares in these villages. Such are the tales: one farmer invested Rs 50,000 in tomato farming but barely recovered Rs 20,000. Locals are learned to have used the cabbage to feed their cattle.
Such overproduction in local produce comes at a time when Nepal continues to import large volumes of green vegetables mainly from India. While Nepali farmers face mounting losses year after year, the Indian vegetables fill the domestic market. There is a glaring disconnect between production and market access. Traders from places like Dang and Butwal have stopped coming by for purchase. There is a private cold storage nearby, but the farmers aren’t allowed to use it. Despite having storage facilities, lack of access and coordination has worsened the crisis. The Nepali farmers across the board face numerous challenges whether they belong to the northern uplands or the southern plains or the often arid mid-hills in the middle. Increasing land fragmentation, lack of irrigation facilities, short supply of agriculture inputs, including seeds and fertilizer, access to the market are just a few to mention. Yet, the subsistence farming practices that remained the hallmark of Nepali agriculture for centuries has gradually been shifting to commercial farming. The plight of these farmers points to systemic challenges, one of them being the lack of market linkage. Farmers produce in bulk, but without proper supply chains, collection centers, or cold storage access. In the end, the surplus goes to waste.
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We need to put in place well-coordinated efforts at the federal, provincial and local levels. It has become extremely important to invest in building infrastructure, such as, cold storage facilities targeting the farmers at the grassroots level. The local government needs to work seriously to facilitate producers with buyers and clients in the urban centers, near and afar. All three tiers are expected to fix minimum support prices so the producers have a cushion in case prices fall suddenly. No less important is the need to regulate the middlemen who tend to fix the prices arbitrarily. The agriculture sector in Nepal has tremendous potential for growth and development. Nepal’s agriculture sector has undergone significant changes over the past couple of decades. Successive governments have given continuity to various supportive government policies. Such support has enabled the agriculture sector to shift from subsistence farming to commercial farming. Farmers are also adopting new technologies. Such developments aside, the agriculture sector continues to face various limitations and issues.
