Baglung. Farmers in Nisseldhore and Dhorpatan are worried as apples have not been grown this year. Farmers of Nisikhola rural municipality-5, Nisseldhar are worried as apples have not been produced in Kunde, Gava and Kang. Apple production has also declined in Navi, Bhuji and Syalpakhe areas of Dhorpatan municipality-9.

The production of apples has decreased in the areas with the highest number of apples in the district. Hemraj Sapkota, a local, said that apple planted in four ropanis of land has not yielded even 10 percent of the production this year. He complained that the production of apple has been decreasing continuously for the last three years as he has been cultivating apples for almost a decade.

“Most of the apple plants are empty this year, even though the production was low last year. Climate change is causing problems. Earlier, there was good production due to rain on time. There has been no rain in the last few years.

Sapkota said, “This year, it is surprising that there is no shortage of apples in the trees except for one or two grains.” Apple plants are all empty. In this way, there is a fear that not a single grain will grow in the coming year. ’

Man Bahadur Gharti, a farmer, said apple production could not take place due to prolonged drought last winter. According to him, farmers have suffered losses of lakhs of rupees due to apple production. According to Gharti, apples of other varieties have not grown except the Italian Fuji variety. “Apples worth Rs 1÷50,000 used to be sold in pohor parar bs, but this time not even Rs 2,000 has been produced,” he said. If it snowed, apples would have produced well, and this problem occurred in the absence of rain. ’

Apples are cultivated in 56.92 hectares of land across the district and 331.2 metric tonnes of apples are produced annually. Santosh Adhikari, information officer at the Agriculture Knowledge Centre, said there has been a huge decline in production this year.