Siraha, 15 October: Khoria village is located at the foothills of Chure, 10 km north of Mirchaiya Bazar. 26 families of marginalized communities including Dalits and tribals live in the settlement. In the settlement, there are small huts, thatched roofs, made of bamboo houses. When you enter this village in Mirchaiya Municipality-7, you can see paddy fields all over the fields. For the farmers here, this is a farming option. Farmers here produce millet only once a year.
The farmers of this place say that this village located at the foothills of Chure is a dry area and there is no option for paddy cultivation due to lack of irrigation facilities. “We have been planting this millet since our forefather. There is no irrigation facility for other crops. There is no drinking water and there is a problem for six months”, said a local Hark Bahadur Pariyar.
At this time the millet is ripe. Farmers are preparing to bring crops. Pariyar has planted millet in two kattha paddy fields. “It’s time to harvest this agoute seed millet today. Pariyar said, “Even if you have two grains of grain, you have to take care of it”. The 10 to 12 pathi of millet produced by him can be consumed only for a few months, the rest of the month he has to earn money by working for a family of six members.
Dhansari Bishwakarma of the same settlement has the same statement as Pariyar. She says that they had to make a living by planting millet as the other crops can not be cultivated in draught. She said, “We have to carry water for six months and one hour walking for drinking water for people and cattle. Existing wells and wells dry up without rain. In such a place, no other crops grow except millet. Even if corn is planted, it will be died by drought.” She informed that other than millet, horse gram(गहत), cow peas(बोडी) and mole( तिल) are planted.
Farmers here complain that the local government and other agencies have not provided advanced seeds and subsidies for the same millet crop. Nageshwar Hathi, Head of Agriculture Branch of Mirchaiya Municipality, said that although about 10 percent of the farmers in the northern part do kodokheti, the municipality does not have any kind of policy and plan to encourage the farmers who do millet cultivation. He said, “The city concerned has not made any policy regarding the expansion and protection of farmers here. In the coming days, on behalf of the city, we will take initiatives to support farmers for millet production, market management and commercialization. In the villages of Karjana, Mirchaiya, Golbazar and Churefed of Dhangadhimai municipality, paddy fields are mainly cultivated.
According to Narendra Kumar Mahaseth, head of Agricultural Knowledge Center Siraha, there are statistics of paddy cultivation in about 645 hectares of land in the district. Similarly, 967 metric tons of millet is produced annually.
According to Chief Mahaseth, since the local level looks after agriculture, he said that they do not have any special plan to encourage the farmers. He said, “Earlier, the farmers here used to do paddy cultivation in the southern part of the district as well. But now it is limited to the northern part only. As the local level looks directly at the farmers through the agriculture branch, now we are in a sense powerless. There is a need to attract farmers for millet cultivation, even if it is by coordinating with the local level. He emphasized on the need to protect the traditional crops of the district.
Khadga Bahadur Bishwakarma of Khoria settlement said that the main food used to be millet bread and Dhindo(pudding), but now rice is the main food and various diseases have also come along with it. He said, “millet cultivation is being displaced in the villages. Other foods in the market are making people sick. As the government does not pay attention to the protection of kodokheti (millet cultivation), limited farmers only do kodokheti that is necessary for them.
