Ghanashyam Khadka

More than 40 percent of the arable land in Myagdi district has been lying fallow as farmers have migrated to urban centres en masse in the last 10 years after their incomes swelled due to remittance, the District Agriculture Development Office (DADO) said.

The district is spread over 229,706 hectares out of which 13.43 percent is cultivable. However, only 7 percent of this land is being used for farming. “People have stopped planting crops not only on distant fields but also in their kitchen gardens,” said Basudev Poudel, horticulture officer at the DADO. “Fields which once produced potato, wheat, millet and barley are now lying deserted.”

About 80 percent of the residents buy their food requirement instead of growing it. “The local output of millet, wheat and corn is used to make moonshine,” said Uttam Karmacharya, first vice-chairman of the Myagdi Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

Although facilities like health post, drinking water and electricity have reached the villages there, the exodus to the cities has not stopped.

“The productive land on the plains has been occupied by concrete houses while the land in rural areas has been lying unused,” said deputy professor for sociology at Myagdi Campus Gorakha Bahadur JC “This has increased dependency in the economic, social and cultural sectors.”

Published on: 29 June 2015 | The Kathmandu Post