Farmers in Thaha Municipality of Makawanpur are worried that they will not get any investment after having to sell potatoes cheaply. Farmers in Daman, Palung, Bajravarahi and Chitlang of Thaha Municipality are currently busy digging potatoes.

They complain that the price of the potatoes produced is very low. Traders are now buying white potatoes from farmers at Rs 10 per kg and red potatoes at Rs 12 per kg.

Last year, white potatoes were sold at Rs 20 per kg and red potatoes at Rs 25 per kg from the fields. ‘Last year’s potato production was good, the price was reasonable, now the production has also decreased, the price is not there,’ said Murari Khatri, a farmer from Thaha-3, ‘The plants have died, the potatoes have started to be dug up, there is no safe storage place, even though they are cheap, they are sold.’ Balkumari Bhattarai, head of the Thaha Municipality Agriculture Branch, said that the potato seeds could not grow because the plants died quickly due to the blight disease when it rained regularly in Baisakh. She said that this time the seeds were small in size.

Traders have reached the fields with scales to buy potatoes. Rajendra Bidari, president of the Nepal Vegetable Traders Association, Northern Region, Makawanpur, says that due to the lack of storage facilities, they are forced to sell potatoes from the fields at a cheap price. ‘They have not even been able to get the cost price when selling them for Rs 10 per kg,’ he said, ‘This year’s yield is also less. The price has also been reduced by half compared to last year.’

Chairman Bidari said that the local produce was not getting a good price because Indian potatoes were also cheap in the market.  Thaha has been collecting revenue of around Rs 5.7 to 6 million from potatoes alone. Local tax has been levied on potatoes and other vegetables exported from here for 52 years.