Myagdi couple turn fallow hillside into walnut and vegetable farm

A hillside plot at Gufa in Bhakimli, ward 3 of Beni Municipality in Myagdi, once produced millet and maize but lay fallow for about a decade, overgrown with weeds and shrubs. The land was far from the family home, labour was hard to find and farming had become increasingly difficult, so the family stopped planting grain there. Three years ago Ram and Parvati Ruchal began clearing it. The couple now farm 14 ropani of ancestral land and a further six ropani taken on rent through their Bebika farm. On the cleared hillside they have planted 350 walnut saplings of the Dante variety, and say they are the first in Bhakimli to grow walnuts commercially; until now the nut was grown there only for household use. The walnut, cabbage and potato plots are covered with plastic mulch to hold moisture and keep weeds down. Cabbage planted in the gaps between the walnut trees during the monsoon brought in Rs 1 lakh 50 thousand at the Pokhara market last year, and the same area has been planted again this year. Ram Ruchal said output and demand were both good, but continuing rain was making it hard to move vegetables from the field to market. The couple also grow off-season potato on six ropani and chilli on two ropani at Tham, which is nearly ready for sale. With support from a Gandaki Province government project for nuts and fruit in hill areas, they have planted 300 orange trees on land that earlier grew paddy, wheat, maize and millet. The couple work the farms themselves and hire local labourers when work peaks. Ward chair Padam Pun said the couple had not only put idle land to use but had shown the potential for farm enterprise at the local level. He said the ward, the municipality, the agriculture development office and provincial and national farm projects were running programmes to draw farmers into production, with different settlements in Bhakimli being developed as centres for oranges, chilli, kiwi, potato, goats and poultry.