Bhimraj Mandal of Hanumannagar Kankalini Municipality-1 in Saptari district had planted paddy in two bigha (around 0.5 hectares) of land. But, floodwater from the Koshi River has destroyed the staple crop which was about to be harvest-ready.
All the hard work done so far was washed away by the flood, Mandal told RSS, the state-owned news agency. “I don’t know what to do.”
Most of the farmers in the area share Mandal’s plight.
“The Koshi floods took away everything,” said Umesh Majhi, another farmer hit by the late monsoon-induced disaster. “It drowned investment worth millions made by the farmers.”
Lakshman Pramani, a farmer near the Koshi Barrage, has lost his paddy planted in four bigha of land. “How am I supposed to run my family in the coming days?” Pramani questioned.
The fear-stricken farmers, whose fields have been partially affected, plan to harvest the paddy before they ripe.
Most of the households in the area are landless squatters. About 45 families have been earning their livelihood by working in and around the Koshi Barrage.
Besides growing paddy, they collect firewood brought by the Koshi River.
Ward Chair Surendra Mandal said that paddy planted in 500 bigha of land was completely destroyed.
According to the Agriculture Knowledge Centre in Rajbiraj, floods have damaged paddy crops in wards 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 8, 9, 11 and 14 of the Hanumannagar Kankalini Municipality.
The Paddy planted across thousands of bigha of land in Tilathi Koiladi Rural Municipality, Kanchanrup Municipality and Tirhut Rural Municipality was also destroyed by recent floods.
Nepal’s agricultural sector was the hardest hit by rain-induced disasters the previous week, causing damage worth around Rs 6 billion, the preliminary details made public by the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock Development on Tuesday, October 1, showed.
The destruction to paddy planted by the farmers in 20 districts alone accounted for more than half of the total damage. The country’s staple food worth Rs 3.5 billion planted over 58,476 hectares of land have been destroyed in floods, landslides and inundation, according to the ministry.
RSS
