By Kailash Lama
Charikot, Dec. 10: The Kiwi fruit has become very popular among Nepalis in recent years, so much so that it has been branded the king of fruits. And if Kiwi is indeed the king of fruits then the Queen Mother resides safely in the house of Shyam Bahadur Khadka in Simpani, Bhimeshwor Municipality - 6 in Dolakha.
This 33-year-old Hayward Kiwi plant is the first Kiwi plant of Nepal and it is still producing 70 to 80 kilograms of fruit every season, helping Khadka earn up to Rs. 20,000.
A Swiss civil engineer JF Messi first planted the sapling in his garden in 1987. Messi had come to survey the Lamosangu-Jiri road which was being constructed with financial support from the Swiss government and was staying on rent at Khadka’s house. Messi returned two years after planting the plant and a year later, it started bearing strange fuzzy fruits.
“We were terrified at first and didn’t do anything at first,” Khadka recounted his first feelings about the exotic Kiwi fruit. “After a couple of years, we felt confident that the Swiss engineer wouldn’t have planted anything inedible. So, I picked up a fruit that had fallen on the ground, cleaned it and ate it and found it to be sweet and tasty.”
He added, “I went with the fruit to the agricultural office and many specialists but no one had any clue what it was.”
News of the unknown fruit was even published in a daily newspaper in 1997. After that, some experts came forward and told Khadka that it was a Kiwi fruit.
“Many friends who had returned from abroad also told us that we had a golden egg-laying goose in our garden. So, we started trying to establish a nursery for the plant and finally succeeded in 2006. In the Temperate Fruit Rootstock Development Center Horticulture Farm in Boch, we produced 100 Kiwi seedlings,” Khadka explained how he got started. “Chandra Man Shrestha, the then head of the horticulture farm urged me to produce my own saplings using the methods and techniques used by the farm. I took his advice.”
He increased the number of Kiwi plants which, in turn, increased his production. He registered the farm ‘Aama Kiwi Fruit Nursery Industry’ in 2011 and has been engaged in commercial Kiwi farming ever since.
He currently farms Hayward, Allison, Monty, Bruno, Red, Mini and Golden varieties of Kiwifruit. He is currently producing up to 2,200 kilograms of Kiwi in a season and is producing and selling Kiwi seedlings worth Rs. 600,000 annually through the nursery.
Khadka shared that, in addition to Dolakha, Kiwi seedlings had been taken to Ramechhap, Okhaldhunga, Sindhuli, Dhading, Nuwakot, Sindhupalchowk, Rasuwa, Gorkha, Syangja, Baglung, Palpa, Jajarkot, Ilam and Sankhuwasabha for commercial cultivation.
Shyam Thapa, a local of Gairaswara, Bhimeshwor Municipality - 6, bought 800 saplings from Khadka’s nursery at a rate of Rs. 350 per plant and started farming Kiwis in 2015. Five years later, he is producing nearly six tonnes of Kiwis and earning around Rs. 800,000 per annum from his business. “The fruit can fetch between Rs. 150 to Rs. 300 in the market depending on its grade,” he informed.
As informed by the Dolakha Kiwi Zone project implementation unit of the Prime Minister Agriculture Modernisation Project, about 800 metric tonnes of Kiwi has been produced in Dolakha this year. Based on the current market prices, this is around Rs. 90 million worth of Kiwis, said Bibek Sunuwar, information officer at the unit.
Kiwi is cultivated in about 400 hectares of land in Dolakha.