80-year-old Sunsari farmer sells over Rs 100,000 of betel nut a year

Govinda Bahadur Karki, 80, of Inaruwa Municipality-4 in Sunsari looks after a 1.5-bigha betel nut plantation that has become a dependable source of income, according to reports by Onlinekhabar, Gorkhapatra, Ratopati and Shilapatra. The reports note that many people do not know betel nut is grown in Sunsari at all.

Karki's ancestral home is in Tehrathum, but his family moved to Sunsari. He said he took up farming, growing paddy and maize, and started on betel nut 15 years ago after seeing his uncle's plantation and those of other farmers on a visit to Birtamod in Jhapa. He began with 100 saplings. The first plants started to bear fruit after four or five years, and he then raised new seedlings from their fruit to expand. The plantation now has close to 1,200 trees.

The trees planted first bear fruit every year, while the rest are still growing. From those first trees, Karki said, he now sells betel nut worth more than Rs 100,000 a year.

Low upkeep, steady buyers

Karki said planting takes some effort, but the trees need little care afterwards. Fertiliser goes on once a year, buffalo dung along with DAP and potash, and lime at the base of each tree keeps ants and insects away. He put the yearly cost of lime, fertiliser and other farm needs at about Rs 20,000. He pays one worker to look after the plantation and does the rest himself, helped by his wife, Dambar Kumari Karki.

He said he has no worry about a market. Each year traders come to the plantation, take the crop on contract and pick it themselves, most of them from Damak. When small traders come to buy in retail, he sometimes sells a little at Rs 70 a kilogram.

Comparing it with grain, Karki said that one bigha of paddy cannot bring in Rs 100,000 even after a great deal of hard work, while betel nut pays better. He said the crop can be grown on any land where water does not stand.

A suggestion for young people

Karki spends his days in the plantation from morning to evening. He said betel nut farming is more than a source of income for him: it fills his days and makes him happy, and he can spend a whole day there contentedly. He suggested that young people who want to start a business could take up betel nut, saying it needs little investment and not much labour.