Hailstorm has destroyed vegetables worth Rs48 million in Tansen municipality. 

The vegetables were grown in the vegetable zone, which is a part of the Prime Minister Agricultural Modernisation Project. The zone sprawls in 199 hectares, where cucumber, bitter gourd, bottle gourd, beans, egg plants, tomatoes, chillies, capsicum, radish, coriander, cabbage, cauliflower, onion, garlic and green leaves are grown. Around 80 percent of the vegetables grown in the zone were damaged by hailstorm, according to Ram Prasad Pandey, senior agricultural development officer at the vegetable zone. The hailstorm has also affected other cereal crops in the municipality.

“The damage estimates are preliminary,” Pandey said. “We are collecting information from all the wards.”

As per preliminary estimates, 1,600 tonnes of vegetables worth Rs48 million were damaged by the hailstorm. “Tomatoes, cucumbers and beans that should have been harvested are scattered all over the zone,” Pandey said. “We will soon find out how many farmers were affected by damage caused to vegetable crops.”

Nirmal Rana, a farmer of Tansen Municipality-14, said beans worth over Rs300,000 are now scattered all over the ground. “I had never imagined I would have to bear such a big loss,” said Rana. 

Tankanath Dhakal, another farmer of Tansen, shared similar story. “I had to suffer losses of over Rs100,000 at a time when the vegetables were about to be harvested,” he said. Chabi Bhattarai, a member of Madan-Pokhara Multipurpose Vegetable Market Cooperative, said each farmer of the cooperative has suffered losses to the tune of Rs300,000. Similar losses were suffered by farmers of Madan Pokhari, Kunsare, Telgha, Bartung and Argali. The government launched the Rs130-billion PM Agricultural Modernisation Project in the last fiscal year to boost agricultural productivity through adoption of modern farm techniques. The main objective of the project is to make the country self-reliant in food.

Under the project, the government has created 2,100 pocket areas of 10 hectares each, 150 blocks of 100 hectares each, 30 zones of 500 hectares each and seven super zones of 1,000 hectares each in various parts of the country to promote production of various crops and bolster agricultural productivity. 

Under the super zones category, Jhapa is being promoted for paddy, Bara for fish, Kaski for vegetables, Kavrepalanchok for potato, Dang for maize, Jumla for apple and Kailali for wheat.