Mustang grows Rs 1.14 billion of apples, but a road closure has stalled sales
Mustang produced apples worth an estimated Rs 1.14 billion this year, but the closure of the Beni-Jomsom road during the peak season has left traders with unsold stock.
Mustang produced apples worth more than Rs 1.14 billion this year, according to a preliminary estimate by the district's agriculture and livestock development office. Traders say much of that harvest has been hard to sell, because the Beni-Jomsom road was blocked during the main season.
According to the office, 7,038.54 metric tonnes of apples were grown on 662 hectares across the district's five local units: 959.62 tonnes of high-density hybrid apples and 6,078.92 tonnes of traditional local varieties. Office chief Dr Lalmani Aryal said the hybrid crop is worth about Rs 230.6 million and the local crop about Rs 919.1 million. Officials put last year's production at 6,684.30 tonnes, making this year's harvest about 5.3 percent larger. Agricultural technicians measured average yields in the orchards using the crop-cutting method, Aryal said.
A late road, a crowded market
The Beni-Jomsom road reopened only two days before Ghatasthapana, Nagarik News and Lokpath reported, so apples that would normally have reached markets earlier in the season arrived all at once near the end of Dashain. Warehouses and wholesale markets in Pokhara and Kathmandu filled up, and prices and sales fell.
Raju Tamang, a trader from Khaniyabas Rural Municipality-3 in Dhading who buys apples in Mustang, told Nagarik News and Lokpath he had bought more than Rs 10 million worth of fruit but had sold only half of it so far, and was unsure how he would recover his investment.
The district agriculture and livestock development office said about 50 percent of the crop had so far been sent to cities including Pokhara and Kathmandu. About 40 percent was still waiting to be picked in the orchards, Lokpath reported. A farm operator, Gurung of Chimle Orchard Agriculture Farm, told Lokpath that unsold apples were over-ripening and falling from the trees, and that he had put about 400 tonnes into cold storage.
Aryal said the road blockage had made it harder to market Mustang's apples this year.