August 18: Farmers of Chandrapur Municipality-3 Gaindatar have ditched cultivation of traditional food crops like paddy, corn, wheat, mustard, and lentils to opt for banana farming.

Farmers are more attracted towards banana farming as it fetches them good income than the traditional food crops.

Cultivating food crops requires both investment and effort but the production is not satisfactory. As a result, the farmers have started giving priority to banana farming.

Deepak Shrestha, a farmer of Gaindatar, says that a single banana plant produces 80 to 100 bananas at a time, and each banana is sold for Rs 5 to Rs 6. He said that he rented land for commercial vegetable farming by paying Rs 6000 and earned better income than by growing grains.

According to him, farmers here earn between Rs 1 million to Rs 1.5 million a year by producing bananas.

He says that one has to work hard and invest until the production starts. Once the production of banana starts, the farmers don't have to invest much, says Shrestha.

Farmers of Gaindatar have been cultivating banana in more than 25 bighas of land. They say that there is no problem in marketing because the demand for bananas in the market is high and the banana traders come to the farm to purchase bananas.

Youngsters who have returned from foreign employment are also involved in banana farming. Although the attraction of farmers towards banana farming has increased, the farmers complain that they have not received support from the local level.

Since most of the farmers in the village are engaged in banana cultivation, the Chandrapur Municipality has informed that there is a plan to develop Gaindatar as a banana pocket area in the future.

The municipality has said that various plans will be introduced to encourage farmers and increase production.

Ward president Bodhnath Devkota said that although the banana farmers are engaged in commercial farming, they are not aware of the facilities such as agricultural insurance.

He said that there is a plan to conduct an awareness program to encourage agricultural insurance.