February 9: Orange production has increased by more than 400 metric tonnes in Solukhumbu, a mountainous district in Koshi Province, this season, according to the Agriculture Knowledge Centre Solukhumbu.    
The district produced 469 metric tonnes more oranges in the current fiscal year 2023-24 compared to the previous fiscal year, 2022-23. Information Officer at the Centre, Kul Bahadur Rai, said orange production in the district last fiscal year was 1,690 metric tonnes, which reached 2,159 metric tonnes in the current fiscal.    
Orange is grown in 295 hectares land in the district, but this year production could be reaped only from 257 hectares. Rai, the centre's information officer, said the production increased this year with the increase in the number of high-yielding orange trees.    
Oranges can be grown in seven out of eight local levels in the district. Cultivation is not possible in Khumbu Pasang Lhamu Rural Municipality because of extreme cold, said Durga Bahadur Tiruwa, chief of the centre.    
Thulung Dudhkoshi Rural Municipality alone contributes sixty percent of orange production in the district. The Deusa area of this rural municipality is the pocket area for orange farming in the entire district.    
Although the orange production has been increasing in the district over the years, farmers complain that they face problems in transporting them to the market.

Sangam Rai, a farmer from Deusa who has been involved in commercial farming of oranges, said that a sizable portion of the oranges produced in Deusa go to waste due to lack of market access and transportation facilities.    
The market for the oranges produced in the district is confined within the district itself. This means that the orange farmers have only a limited market for their produce.

Ambar Rai, another farmer of Deusa, rued that oranges taken to Salleri, the district headquarters, for sale, does not even sells at Rs 50 per kilogram.    
According to him, the orange producers have not been able to make profit due to the lack of market and they do not have the facility to take their produce to bigger markets in other districts. -- RSS