This year’s orange season has begun in Ilam. The retail price of oranges, which have been in the market since the second week of Kartik, is currently between Rs. 90 and Rs. 120 per kg. As in previous years, sales of orange gardens have started this year as well.
However, farmers are worried as the production of oranges is declining every year due to drying up of the plants. Farmers said that this year’s production of oranges is much less than last year’s.
Farmer Sambed Chapagain of Ilam Municipality-5 said, “Even in five- to six-year-old adult plants, the seeds turn yellow on the buds, there are insects inside the yield and the plants turn yellow and dry out. But, it remains untreated.”
“There are better fruits in our gardens this year than any other farmer’s orchards, but most of the branches which gave good fruit last year have dried up.”
He said that now many orchards have been destroyed due to the disease and even the technicians do not know the exact cause of the disease.
Chapagain is expected to produce 20 quintals of oranges this year.
Chapagain, who sold oranges produced in his orchard for Rs. 400,000 last year, said that the orange orchard is yet to be sold this year.
Jit Bahadur Jabegu, another farmer of Barbote in Ilam Municipality-5, said that it is estimated that 15 quintals of orange will be produced this year. He said that he was not only a farmer but also bought some oranges from his neighbours and took them to the markets of Jhapa.
“Oranges produced in new gardens are good, while the old gardens are destroyed. The income of farmers from oranges is declining,” said Jabegu.
In Salakpur of Ilam, the ‘Golden Valley’ of ‘Orange’, an orange orchard has been destroyed. Farmer Yam Adhikari of Jirmale said that the name of the orange has been erased this year in Salakpur from where Rs. 10 million worth of oranges are supplied annually.
According to him, most of the orchards in Salakpur have been destroyed due to the disease.
Earlier, the Biratnagar-based Agriculture Research Centre had studied the new disease in oranges but no treatment could be done, said Adhikari.
Farmers now have no alternative to planting new plants by treating the soil.
Until a few years ago, oranges worth Rs. 10 million were supplied annually from Salakpur in Rong Rural Municipality of Ilam.
According to Adhikari, about 200 farmers have planted oranges here and one farmer’s orchard can be sold for up to Rs. 800,000.
Meanwhile, Agriculture Knowledge Centre, Ilam has stated that data related to this year’s orange production has not been collected.
Hemraj Pant, crop protection officer at the Centre, said that the production of orange was declining every year due to diseases such as fruit falling and plant drying.
“It is time to pay serious attention for the protection of oranges in the district,” he said.
The oranges are cultivated in 330 hectares of land in Ilam. The district had produced 2,941 tonnes of oranges last year. Although oranges have been cultivated in Sumbek, Barbote, Namsaling, Soyak Godak, Jirmale and other areas of the district, farmers have said that the orchards have started going dry after the disease appeared in those areas.
Source : TRN,
