Kanchanpur. The Muktakamayya family of Krishnapur Municipality-2 Banhara has made Bagar green. Bagar is full of fruits and vegetables including watermelon, cucumber, gourd, pumpkin, radish, and turnip. The Muktakamayya family has built a stall near the East-West Highway to sell watermelon, cucumber, and other vegetables produced by more than 100 families in Bagar.
They have been selling watermelon and other fruits from this stall. The highway is very crowded in the morning and evening. This crowd is of customers buying watermelon and cucumber. Shivlal Rana, who has been farming in Bagar for 6 years, said that the business near the highway meets the household expenses for the whole year. He said that he earns Rs 2,000 to Rs 3,500 daily by selling fruits including watermelon.
He informed that the turnover is between Rs 300,000 and Rs 500,000 from April to June. ‘Families that produce more earn more,’ he said, ‘those that produce less earn less.’ Bir Rana, who has been involved in watermelon farming for fifteen years, said that after selling the gourds and watermelons produced in the bagar, he also cultivated the land found during the re-establishment, so he has been living on the street for three months and doing watermelon trading.
‘After the announcement of Kamaiyamukti, when the land near the Vanahara River was re-established, ten kattas of land were provided for house construction and farming,’ he said. ‘Since the crops planted on the land were not enough to eat for even four months, we made a living by working as laborers for a few years.’
‘We saw watermelons and cucumbers being planted in other river bagar, we also learned, then we stopped working as laborers and started dreaming of the future here, and the watermelons have grown. “We have been continuing this farming,” he said. He says that since the household expenses are running smoothly, the situation of having to take loans from others has ended.
14-year-old Asmita Rana, who lives near the highway, has also been selling watermelons. “I go to school in the morning,” she said, “Then my mother sells from the hut, and after returning from school, I sell.” She mentioned that she keeps some of the income from selling watermelons from the hut for household expenses and spends the rest on school uniforms, pens, etc.
40-year-old Pooja Rana from Banhara Muktakamayya Basti has been selling watermelons and other fruits along the highway for a decade. She has cultivated watermelons on ten kattas of land along the Banhara River. “We started selling from the first week of Baisakh,” she said. “So far, we have sold more than Rs 65,000.” According to her, watermelons are sold for Rs 30 to Rs 40 per kilogram.
Thegra Rana says that she spends Rs 30 to 40,000 on seeds and chemical fertilizers to grow watermelons. Rana said that she has been earning a profit of more than Rs 500,000 every year. She has sold 20 quintals of cucumbers and 60 quintals of watermelon this month.
‘The watermelons and vegetables picked from the fields in the morning are sold out before evening,’ said Nandalal Rana, ‘customers are demanding more due to the increasing heat.’ “It costs a lot of money to transport it to other areas, it requires a lot of labor, and since it can be easily sold on the highway near our house, we have been living in a tent there to survive,” he said.
Taula Rana, who used to work in a brick kiln, says that he quit working as a laborer and got involved in watermelon farming after learning that he could earn a lot of money from bagar farming. Muktakamai has made a rule that traders from other areas, except Banhara, are not allowed to sell watermelons in that area.
Amar Bahadur Air of Amarpur, who reached the highway to buy watermelons, says that he buys watermelons from Banhara every year because they are juicy. “The watermelons here are sweeter and cheaper than those from other places. That’s why we come here every year to buy watermelons,” he said.
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