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Kathmandu Friday October 13, 2000 Aswin 27, 2057.
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Agro-price
dives further
Post Report
DHANGADI, Oct 12 - Price of domestic paddy and wheat, which
had sharply dropped in the past few months, has received yet another setback with a
further dip of over 50 percent and 60 percent respectively.
Paddy, whose price was almost Rs 800 per quintal till
recently has fallen to as low as Rs 350 and wheat that cost almost Rs 900 per quintal has
gone done to Rs 650.
The sudden drop in price during the festivals caused uproar
among the farmers who were forced to sell their produce at loss in order to celebrate the
Dashain festival.
Prem Raj Joshi, activist with Forum for Protection of
Farmers’ Rights (FPFR), talking to The Kathmandu Post stressed that the government
must provide relief to the farmers through the resumption of subsidy in irrigation and
fertilizers, and by fixing the minimum support price for their produce.
The cause of the recent decline in price of domestic
agriculture output is primarily due to the flooding imports of agro-products from India,
which pulled down the price in the domestic market.
Indian agriculture products are comparatively cheaper than
Nepalese output, and the subsidized Indian agriculture output is killing the market for
domestic produce, farmers lamented.
In addition, existing stock of paddy and wheat with
businessmen in huge quantities has also played a part in bringing down their prices.
FPFR for the past three months have been demanding with the
government to fix the support price of fine paddy at Rs 1000, common paddy and maize at Rs
900 and sugarcane at Rs 140 per quintal.
The forum had put forward its demands to the government by
submitting a memorandum to Deputy Prime Minister Ram Chandra Poudel during his visit to
Dhangadi.
Last year Kailali district alone produced over 217 thousand
tons of paddy.
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