Myagdi, 28 January: 52 years ago, Bal Bahadur Armaja and Bal Bahadur Khatri planted orange trees in Banskharka, Jaljala Rural Municipality-1, Parbat, but their neighbors uprooted and threw them away, saying that they would cause scorching and spoil the crops.
Although they are no longer alive, they are still remembered by society, who were accused of planting thorns to destroy the farmlands when commercial orange farming was introduced in Banskharka. Not only their descendants but the entire Banskharka population has benefited from the plan five decades ago to make the villages of Armaja and Khatri prosperous and self-reliant. Orange farming has changed the economic and social status of the people of Banskharka.
“Our father uprooted and threw away the orange trees he planted in 2028 BS(1972). The trees he brought back and planted in 2032 BS(1976) are still bearing fruit,” said Bal Bahadur Khatri’s son Nar Bahadur. “It has been 22 years since my father passed away. My brother and I sell oranges for Rs. 1 to 1.3 million every year. We are eating our father’s ‘pension’.”
Khatri, 62, who retired after completing his 24-year tenure as a primary school teacher, has continued orange farming. In 1997-98, he had planted one or two orange trees in his orchards in Bazarare and Birmare for his hobby. Leading farmers say that orange farming began to expand in Banskharka in the 2030s after the development of business awareness and the Agricultural Development Bank started providing loans.
Some farmers had also started nurseries as a way to market orange seedlings, thanks to the initiative of retired Gurkha soldiers from Banskharka working at the Agricultural Research Center in Lumle. Bal Bahadur Armaja had taken a loan of Rs 1,500 from the Beni branch of the Agricultural Development Bank and established an orange nursery and orchard. The orchard currently has 700 fruit-bearing and 100 growing orange trees.
Hem Bahadur, the eldest son of Bal Bahadur, said that he has succeeded in raising his children and running the household from orange farming to building a house and a shop in Pokhara. “My brother has sold oranges worth Rs. 3 million this year from the farming started by his father, and the same amount of oranges are still to be picked in my garden,” he said. “I have sold the oranges and bought a house in Pokhara for Rs. 25 million.”
Shanta Bahadur Chhintel, who earned Rs 2.3 million from selling oranges this year, said that their financial status has changed a lot. “We used to not have enough to eat even for six months after cultivating rice, millet and maize, and we were forced to go abroad to educate our sons and daughters and run the household,” he said. “Now, despite being self-reliant and self-employed, we are able to provide work in the garden to others.”
The entire village is in orange groves.
Among the 239 households in Banskharka, which is located at an altitude of 1,100 to 1,900 meters above sea level, more than 200 households in the settlements other than Malgaun and Ghumune Tal are engaged in sugarcane cultivation. Kiwi cultivation has also been started in Malgaun.
After the orchards in other parts of the country have been flourishing, oranges are being picked in the orchards of Banskharka since the month of Magh(Dec/Jan). The orchards of Banskharka, located on a steep slope, are filled with the lush Paherpur oranges. They have tied the branches together and hung them on poles. As they walk along the road, orange seeds hit their heads.
According to a survey conducted in the first week of Magh, there are 51,151 orange trees in an area of ​​1,500 ropanis in Banskharka. Mekh Bahadur Khatri, Principal of Jyotimandal Secondary School in Banskharka, who led the survey, informed that oranges worth Rs 184.447 crore were produced from 26,706 trees this year.
Last year, oranges worth Rs 110 million were sold, and the year before that, Rs 100 million. The increase in production is due to expansion of the area, the addition of new fruit-bearing plants, garden management, favorable weather, reduced problems with falling fruit, and more fruit. “An additional 24,445 orange trees are growing in the garden,” said Khatri. “A family earns Rs 4 to 4 million annually from orange farming.” It is estimated that production will double to around Rs 400 million in a few years when all the trees bear fruit.
Farmers in Banskharka have grown oranges as an alternative to rice, millet, corn, and wheat. Legend has it that Banskharka came into existence because it was originally a bamboo forest and a shed for cattle, buffalo, and sheep in the winter. The old Banskharka has now been converted into an orange grove.
Tourists come to see the orange orchards. Banskharka is the entry point of the Annapurna-Dhaulagiri Community Ecological Trail, which includes Myagdi and Parbat. Homestays are also operated in Upper Banskharka.
Self-employment and self-reliance from oranges
The people of Banskharka have lost sight of the alternative of orange farming. Jeevan Neupane, 42, of Banskharka, who returned after working in Qatar for 18 years, sells oranges worth up to Rs. 1.5 million annually. He, who left for abroad at the age of 20 in search of employment, said that he did not have to become a migrant after oranges started providing income. “Three hundred orange trees generate an annual income of Rs. 12 to Rs. 1.5 million,” he said. “After starting orange farming, I did not have to go abroad. I am satisfied that I can send my children to good schools and live a respectable life in the village.”
Rajan KC, 38, from Banskharka, who has completed his bachelor’s degree, has also become self-employed by expanding his grandfather’s orange farming business. Rajan’s garden, which is spread over 38 ropanis, has 1,200 orange trees. It is estimated that his garden has produced oranges worth Rs. 3.5 million this year. “Some of my friends who have also completed higher education are teachers and government employees, many of whom have gone abroad,” said Rajan. “Since I have continued my grandfather’s orange farming business, I have not had to look for employment or go abroad.”
Ramesh Khatri, a young man from Banskharka, has also become self-employed by cultivating oranges in the village along with a fancy business in Beni. Ramesh, who supported his father in orange cultivation, says that he has no plans to go abroad or find employment elsewhere. Orange cultivation has made many youths from Banskharka, like Jeevan, Rajan and Ramesh, self-employed and self-reliant, and has ended the compulsion to go abroad for income and employment. Ward Chairman Jag Bahadur Roka said that young people who have returned from abroad and those in the village have become self-employed by cultivating oranges professionally. “Due to orange cultivation, there is less problem of migration from our ward to other places and going abroad,” he said, “Some have returned to the village from the city and even from abroad and taken up orange cultivation.”
Banskharka’s orange has become a ‘brand’
Basudev Regmi, secretary of the Ministry of Land Management, Agriculture and Cooperatives of Gandaki Province, said that Banskharka, which is spread over a sloping land towards the northern front, is ideal for orange cultivation. “The main feature here is that the land faces the mountains, the climate is suitable for orange cultivation, and orange cultivation has flourished due to the black soil and fertile land,” he said, who has spent about a decade in the mountains. “Even when the orchards elsewhere are empty, oranges remain in Banskharka until Magh-Phalgun.”
Leading farmer Jagat Bahadur Khatri said that farmers of Banskharka are attracted to orange farming due to favorable geography, road expansion, many times higher income compared to food crops, market facilities, loan facilities from banks and financial institutions, and technical support from government agencies. The Agricultural Knowledge Center, the Orange ‘Zone’ of the Prime Minister’s Agriculture Modernization Project, and the Agriculture Branch of Jaljala Rural Municipality have helped in establishing orange nurseries in Banskharka, distributing seedlings, providing small-scale irrigation, constructing greenhouses, and marketing oranges.
‘Banskhark’, a native variety of orange
The Nepal Agricultural Research Council (NARC) has granted the ‘release’ (recognition) of the indigenous ‘Banskharka’ variety of oranges cultivated in the Dhaulagiri region in 2080 BS. Raju Prasad Gautam, head of the agriculture branch of Jaljala Rural Municipality, said that the recognition of the Banskharka orange as indigenous was given on the basis that it has different characteristics from other varieties of oranges currently cultivated in Nepal.
According to the National Fruit Crop Development Center, earlier in Nepal, Ghanakuta (Khoku) local, Okitsuwase, Miyagawawase, Markat, Yoshida Pongkan, Ota Pongkan, and Kinno varieties of orange were cultivated. The National Orange Variety Research Program conducted a comparative study of the variety taken from Bansakharka in Dhankuta with 20 other varieties of orange.
The Bansakharka variety has been recommended for cultivation in the hilly land with an altitude of 1,000 to 1,600 meters. The research team has identified the previously recommended Khoku as a seasonal variety that yields more than the local variety and ripens about 15 days faster. The demand for Banskharka oranges, which have become a ‘brand’ for their seeds, has increased after they were recognized as a native variety.
The Directorate of Agricultural Research, Lumle, and some nurseries have been producing and distributing grafted plants of this variety for the past 30 years. The weight of the orange seeds of this variety is about 100 grams and the total soluble matter (sugar content) is up to 12 percent. Which is more than other varieties. It is said that this variety is less susceptible to canker and stem borer.
There are problems too
The lack of upgrading of the unpaved road connecting Banskharka in 2065 BS, lack of systematic infrastructure for easy irrigation, shortage of technical manpower, and bare electricity wires between the fertilizer and the orchard are the challenges and problems seen in orange farming. The road connecting Mohanchowk-Mallaj-Banskharka and Waribeni-Mallaj-Banskharka is winding. The eight-kilometer Beni-Bagarphant-Banskharka road, which was opened a decade ago under the leadership of locals, has not been upgraded, making it difficult for large vehicles to reach the orchards. Oranges are often crushed and destroyed when transported on unpaved roads by tractors and jeeps.
Even though there is a canal from the upper reaches of the Banskharka to the Mallaj Irrigation Project, there is a problem with irrigation during the winter as water does not come in. Farmers have demanded that water be brought in even during the winter in coordination with Annapurna Rural Municipality of Myagdi, where the source is, and that irrigation arrangements be made for the orange orchards by constructing branch pipelines and tanks.
The greenhouse built eight years ago in Banskharka has not been put into use due to the lack of regular electricity supply. There is a risk of accidents due to the naked electric wires in the middle of the orange orchard. Landslides during rains are another problem here. It seems that regular presence of agricultural technicians in the village to provide technical knowledge related to orange farming, organic and chemical fertilizers, and necessary nutrients for the plants during orange orchard management are needed. To reduce the problem of grain loss, it seems that protein weight should be sprinkled, safe management of filled grains by keeping them in plastic bags, and continuity in orchard management is needed.
Initiatives for a solution
Jaljala Rural Municipality Chairman Raju Prasad Acharya said that an orange festival was held in Banskharka on Magh 11 in the presence of the Chief Minister, Ministers and MPs of Gandaki Province to highlight the potential of Bansakharka and draw the attention of higher authorities to the problem. “There is ample potential for orange farming in Bansakharka, but the rural municipality does not have the capacity to solve the problems of roads, irrigation, electricity and landslide control here,” he said. “The festival was held with the aim of drawing the attention of stakeholders to the problems of Banskharka, which is lagging behind in development.”
Chief Minister Surendra Pandey, Minister for Agriculture, Cooperatives and Land Management Padma GC Shrestha, Minister for Industry and Tourism Mitra Lal Basyal and lawmakers pledged to help in upgrading the road connecting Banskharka, providing irrigation facilities, expanding orange cultivation and marketing. “We will soon address the problems you have been facing in transporting oranges,” said Chief Minister Pandey, adding, “This year too, the provincial government has allocated a budget of Rs 110 million for various infrastructure projects in Jaljala Rural Municipality.”
Agriculture Minister Shrestha said that the Hill Fruit Development Project (NAFA) has been implemented in Banskharka and Jaljala rural municipalities to expand orange cultivation and promote the market, and through this, farmers will be provided with subsidies under various headings. If orange cultivation is expanded, market management, road upgrading for easy transportation, landslide control, and irrigation management can be done in Banskharka and the surrounding areas, there is a great potential for Banskharka to develop as a model agricultural village.
