Farmers, severely hit by the low production of paddy in the district, said they couldn´t harvest as expected despite their hard work due to government´s apathy to address the problems.[break]
"We couldn´t get proper seeds to plant in right time and didn´t get fertilizer for good harvest of summer paddy," Kaleshu Chaudhari, a local farmer from Hasuliya-1 of Kailali said. "The production also fell due to inadequate rainfall." Most of the farmers rely on rainfall for water due to lack of proper irrigation system in the district.
Additionally, farmers couldn´t plant paddy in time due to lack of sufficient rainfall during plantation period. "We also didn´t get fertilizer for long time even after planting paddy," Chaudhari said.
Girish Raj Joshi, crop development officer of District Agriculture Development Office (DADO) of Kailali admitted that the production of paddy fell by 10 percent due to various reasons such as shortage of fertilizer, draught and lack of irrigation facility. According to Joshi, farmers plant paddy in 71,250 hectare of land in the district.
"Saplings of paddy should be planted in its 21 days," Joshi said. "Farmers couldn´t do so due to draught during paddy planting." He blamed draught for the fall in paddy production.
Chandra Dev Joshi, another farmer from district, said that government´s indifference compel them go through hardships in time of planting paddy each year. "We suffer for the whole year," Joshi said.
"Shortage of fertilizer and lack of irrigation facility hit us hard in time of planting and decreased production of paddy worries us in time of harvest.
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