Women of Mudap village in Gurukhola of Baitadi district have to walk for four hours to sell their vegetables.
Women farmers have complained that they have not been able to get the price proportionate to their labour in lack of fixed market price of their vegetables and the monopoly of middlemen, who tend to purchase vegetables at a lower rate.
Leading farmer Manmati Bhat of Dashrathachand Municipality-1, Gurukhola, said, “We were very happy when a road was built with the use of a dozer in the village. The name of the road was also rural agricultural road. But we have to carry vegetables on the rural road. There is no vegetable collection centre in the village and the price of vegetables has not been fixed.”
She said that the middlemen have been buying vegetables from us at a cheaper rate and selling at high prices. The farmers have complained that their feet get cracked when they walk in the cold weather in the morning carrying a heavy load on their back.
Another woman farmer Parvati Bhat, who was found in Baitadi with a vegetable basket on her head, has a similar complaint. “We don’t even know how many rupees we will get by selling a kilo of vegetables. How much better it would have been if a vegetable collection centre had been set up in the village even if we did not get fertilisers and seeds.”
Farmer Dhana Bhat said that the farmers of Baitadi, who had become happy after the road reached the village, are now sad when they are unable to realise their dream to make money by selling vegetables.
According to Bhat, there is plenty of green spinach, mustard green, coriander and potato in the field but it takes a whole day to reach the market.
He said that the farmers were in trouble due to lack of means of transporting vegetables. Consumers are buying green spinach at a rate of Rs. 80 per kg in the vegetable shops in Baitadi district headquarters.
Farmers have complained that middlemen are buying from the women farmers at half the price.
Even though Dasharathchand Municipality-1 of Baitadi has been declared as a Gurukhola vegetable pocket area, there is no collection centre for collecting vegetables grown by farmers and no arrangement for transportation.
Spokesperson of Dasharathchand Municipality Chakra Prasad Sharma said that the municipality did not have sufficient resources even though the demand for vegetable collection centre and means of transportation was reasonable.
Source : TRN,
