Farmers are now struggling to dry their rice, which has been soaked by unseasonal rains, while some have given up as soon as the sun shows signs of coming out.
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Farmers in the district are worried after the paddy they had cut and dried for import has sunk in their fields due to the rain. After the meteorologist informed that it had rained continuously for 24 hours from Monday night to Tuesday night and that it would rain for a few more days, the farmers are worried that the paddy they had cut and dried will rot and grow in the fields and go to waste.
Rice is cultivated in about 7,000 hectares of fields in the district every year. Farmers have already imported more than 50 percent of the rice that has ripened in the fields. Even now, in the fields around the banks of the Sharda River and around the Kharekhola of Sharda, Bagchaur, Bangad Kupinde Municipality, Triveni, Kalimati, Siddhakumakh, Kumakh, and Darma Rural Municipality, the rice that farmers cut and dried to bring in is wet.
Farmers are now struggling to dry the rice that has been soaked in unseasonal rains in a dry place, while some have left it as soon as the sun shows signs of coming out.
Although the ripe rice should be cut and imported before Tihar, most of the farmers in Kalimati Rural Municipality delayed it by saying that they would bring it in when they had free time after celebrating Dashain and Tihar, farmer Deepak Bhandari said that the rice that they cut and dried is wet in the fields due to the rain.
In Kalimati's Totke, Chapi, Chankheli, Syanku Jiula, Simalchowk, Dhorni, and other areas, the rice harvested and dried by farmers in the fields is not only wet but also submerged in the fields in some places, he informed. 'Although there was no rain on Wednesday, clouds are starting to gather. Now, farmers have started drying the wet rice in a dry place, but instead of using the wet rice, farmers are worried about whether it will be suitable for sowing next year or not,' he said.
Krishna Budhathoki, a farmer from Triveni Rural Municipality-5, said that a lot of the rice harvested and dried by farmers around Luhamkhola is wet with water. He informed that the rice was wet with water when he thought of drying it properly and bringing it in. "A few years ago, after Dashain, when there was continuous rain, the ripe rice was destroyed due to water. There is a fear that the same will happen this time too," he said. "Since the rice produced was harvested by sowing seeds, most farmers could easily eat it for six months. However, after the weather experts informed that it will rain for a few more days, they are starting to worry that it will all be gone after sprouting and rotting." He said that there is no place to store the harvested rice in a safe place to protect it from water, which is a bigger problem. Meanwhile, Bhim Bahadur Nepali, a farmer from Sharada Municipality-9, said that after the rice that was cut and dried was soaked in water for 24 hours, it is now difficult to dry it. He informed that most of the harvested and dried rice fell off after it was soaked in water. He said, "Today, everyone uses machines to thresh rice. We also relied on machines. That is why we dried the rice in the field. We were unable to bring the machine because of the rain.’
Mahesh Acharya, head of the Agricultural Development Office, Salyan, said that many farmers in the district have already brought in their ripe paddy crop and that even if the late-ripening paddy in the fields around Kharekhola, which is not irrigated throughout the year, is not damaged much even if it gets wet. He said that since all the farmers in the district are planting hybrid paddy rather than local varieties, it will not be affected by a day of rain.
