More than 60 families of Damdala in Dhime village development committee (VDC) have been growing orange on 49 hectares of land for more than 30 years, making orange farming their main source of income.[break]
Shakti Bahadur Wali, for instance, earns Rs 400,000 a year by selling orange from his farms. Another farmer Krishna Bahadur Thapa earns around Rs 300,000 to Rs 350,000 per annum by engaging in the same profession. Villagers said even those who grow oranges on a few trees earn around Rs 50,000 a year.
And this is despite the village being a six-hour walk away from the district headquarter Khalanga.
“If our village had a road access, our revenue probably would have doubled,” Wali said, complaining that he sometimes has to sell oranges for Rs 20 per kg in the village, despite knowing they could have easily fetched Rs 60 in the district headquarter.
In the hope of getting high returns, orange farmers like Wali sometimes use porters and animals like mule to transport the produce to the district headquarter. The costs are too high, they say.
Farmers said if the government can link the village with a road, oranges grown in the village could find way to urban centers like Nepalgunj and even Kathmandu.
Keshav Devkota, senior official of Jajarkot District Agriculture Development Office, agrees and says: “The oranges of the village could reach various corners of the country if it had access to transport facilities.”
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