By Siraj Khan, Nepalgunj, Oct. 29: After working at a dragon fruit farm in Malaysia for six years, Tilak Magar of Khajura Rural Municipality-4, Banke has started farming at his own village.

With an aim to start farming in his own country, Magar had brought a dragon fruit sapling while returning from Malaysia last year.

By grafting the one dragon fruit plant that he had brought with him, Magar had planted 10 dragon fruits on his farm in the beginning. "I was able to Rs. 50,000 to Rs. 60,000 in the first year of farming," said Magar.

"It is said that if we work hard, we can grow gold in our own land. It feels like I am the living example of it," he added.

Currently, Magar has 110 dragon fruit plants on his farm. Stating that he was able to make Rs. 60,000 from the first 10 plants, Magar said that this year the income would increase to around Rs. 150,000 as he had grown additional dragon fruits.

"We sell a kilo of dragon fruit at Rs. 600 from hour house itself. We have planted two types of dragon fruit," said Magar.

The Khajura Rural Municipality has also been working to encourage the production of dragon fruit, which is exotic in look and has various health benefits. "We will be facilitating dragon fruit farming on both, economic and technical grounds, in the days to come," said Ankit Bishwakarma, a technician at the agriculture department of the Rural Municipality.

As we have been striving to make Khajura the model Rural Municipality, we will be prioritising the production of dragon fruit, added Bishwakarma.

Meanwhile, the farmers have been saying that if the government would promote the production of new and exotic fruits and plants, it would help in accelerating the nation's economy on the whole.