Jumla supplies 6,500 metric tons apple; farmers double income

Kathmandu / Oct 22: Jumla alone has supplied 6,500 metric tons of apples amounting around Rs 342 million, the highest yield so far in the past two years.

Chief of District Agriculture Development Office, Balakram Devkota was quoted in Rastriya Samachar Samiti as saying that the income generated from the sales of apples in this year exceeded the income earned in the fiscal year 2074/75 BS and 2075/76 by nearly 170 million.

Devkota shared, the apple transaction was Rs 160 million in the fiscal year 2017/18 and Rs 170 million in the fiscal year 2018/19 with a considerable rise in production this year — Rs 341,880,000.

As many as 16,500 households are relying on apple framing in Jumla where an annual income of farmers like Nara Rawat and Mahendra Budha of Tila rural municipality-1, has substantially increased over the years ranging from Rs 200,000 to Rs 400,000.

Jumla covers a total of 39,435 hectares of cultivable land. Of the apple farmed in total 3,700 hectares land, only 1,447 hectares land produced yield.

On average, a farmer produced 8.25 metric tons of apples in the district.

Fruit suppliers purchased apples directly from the apple orchards.