Sur Bahadur Shahi, a local of Hima Rural Municipality-1, spends most of his time trading in India. It was Shahi’s annual routine to come back to Jumla by the end of March to prepare the seedbed of Jumli Marshi, an indigenous rice variety grown in Jumla, until a year ago.

But Shahi has decided not to return home this season.

“My farmland has been damaged by the flood,” said Shahi. “There’s no point in returning to the village.”

Daljit Shahi, from the same area who is also currently in India, shared a similar story.

“I have decided to stay back in India as I see no possibility of farming this season,” said Shahi.

Along with Sur Bahadur and Daljit, 14 others from the same area in Jumla have been working in India.

Every year, the locals of the Sinja region in the district travel to India for employment after harvesting the crops by mid-November and return to prepare for the next plantation season by the end of March.

However, many of them haven’t returned this year as their farmland and irrigation channels damaged by the floods from Hima and Tila rivers last year in October have not been repaired.

The five-kilometre-long irrigation channel spans several wards of Chandannath Municipality and poses a risk to around 2,500 hectares of farmland if it is not repaired promptly.

The floods last year had also washed away the major irrigation channels and plots of Marshi rice in Hima, Sinja and Kanakasundari Rural Municipalities.

Ratan Bahadur Shahi, ward chief of Hima Rural Municipality-1, said that they planned to irrigate the farmlands via pipelines as an alternative option.

“Uncertainty of the irrigation facility has worried the farmers,” said Shahi. “We have, however, requested them to sow the seeds for producing the seedlings.”

The Water Resource and Energy Development Office in Jumla has forwarded the locals' demand to reconstruct 34 irrigation channels to the Ministry of Physical Infrastructure, Energy and Water Resources in Karnali Province.

Dipak Bahadur Malla, a farmer from Chandannath Municipality-2, said that the locals were unable to repair the channel themselves.

Some farmers have sowed barley relying on the winter rainfall. But, they fear their farmlands will remain barren if the channels are not repaired at the earliest.

Farmers in the villages such as Acharyabada, Thinke, Deutimadi, Paltisara and Layapaani Jeulo are dependent upon these channels to irrigate their fields, till the monsoon starts in June.

The locals have made multiple requests to the government to repair the channels through the District Administration Office as well as local representatives of the federal and provincial assemblies. However, they accuse the government of ignoring their issues.

While the local government has sidelined our concerns citing insufficient funds, the provincial and the federal governments have been completely indifferent to our sorrows, farmers said.

“No government agency is eager to conserve Marshi farming,” said Nabaraj Karki, a local farmer.

The cultivation of Marshi rice in the district has fallen from 2,800 hectares to 1,400 hectares in the past ten years, according to the Agriculture Research Station in Bijayanagar.

Marshi rice is also prone to disease infestation. A team of researchers has been working to develop a disease-resistant variety of the rice for the last 13 years.

They recently developed three new disease-resistant varieties–Jumli Marshi-18, Jumli Marshi-20 and Jumli Marshi-22. However, the farmers have not been provided with these varieties yet due to the unfinished paperwork.