Paras Thakur of Triveni, Bara Pheta Rural Municipality-1, plants potatoes with a machine. He digs potatoes with the machine itself. He has been growing two crops of potatoes in his 3 bigha field for the past few years and is earning up to Rs 1 million a year.

69-year-old Thakur is earning a good income in his village with his hard work and use of mechanization. He brings in two crops of potatoes every year from Asoj to Chait. After that, he also plants one crop of rice in the same field.

Thakur showed the potatoes he grew during a one-day on-site observation and evaluation tour of winter crop technicians organized by the Agricultural Equipment Research Center Ranighat, Birgunj on Monday. The center showed the potatoes to the stakeholders by uprooting the potatoes with a 'Potato Digger' machine.

He has been planting his first potato crop in mid-October and selling it within two months. 'Potatoes do not reach their full size within 60 days. Even though they are small, they fetch good prices,' he said. He said that he plants potatoes for the second time in the field immediately after bringing in and selling the first crop. He digs the potatoes planted for the second time in the first week of Chaitra. 'Usually, the potato crop has to be kept in the field for 80 days. The second crop does not get as good a price as the first immediately,' he said. 'If you store the potatoes dug in Chaitra for a few days and sell them, you get a good price. You can earn good income from potatoes twice a year.'

He plants Arun Gold, Ketu and 3797 varieties of potatoes. He produces 600 quintals of potatoes at a rate of at least 10 quintals per kattha. In this way, he easily produces about 1,200 quintals of potatoes in a year. He bought a potato planter machine for Rs. 400,000. He has earned about Rs. 300,000 by renting this machine for the past 3 years. The potato digger machine for uprooting potatoes is provided to him by the Agricultural Equipment Research Center Ranighat, Birgunj.

Thakur bought a tractor as his first agricultural implement in 2069 BS. He said that he first brought in a tractor because a tractor is necessary to operate any agricultural equipment. Soon after, he gradually added a harrow for cutting and mixing corn plants with the soil, a cultivator for pulling soil, a leveler for leveling soil, a land leveler for cutting and hoeing, an interculture operator machine for loosening soil, and a rotavator for making soil fertile, and a thresher machine for threshing rice.

Although there has been a shortage of agricultural laborers for years, Thakur has experienced that mechanization has not affected him and the cost of farming has also reduced. ‘For one thing, laborers are no longer available, and those that are available are expensive,’ he said. ‘After getting agricultural machinery, our family members can easily do farming.’

This leading farmer, who has studied up to SLC, uses the Internet to get information about new technologies introduced in the agricultural sector, advanced seed varieties, organic crops, and making pesticides using home-made methods. Last year, he visited Punjab, India, and brought back detailed information about the potato farming methods and seed varieties used by farmers there. Thakur says that since farmers there are producing twice as much potatoes as Nepali farmers by growing LR and 3797 varieties of potatoes, it is necessary to import advanced potato seeds in Nepal as well.