By Our Correspondent
Simikot, Jan. 2: Quintals of apples have piled up at farmers’ houses after the downfall in the consumption of the fruits.
Pushpa Bhandari, a farmer of Simikot Rural Municipality-1 said that 25 quintals of apples grown in 140 trees were piled up at her house.
“We are not able to sell 45/50 quintals of apples in the market.” Said Bhandari. “Even though we have dried apple chips and wine out of them, we still have quintals of unsold apples in our houses.”
“Despite of having a nice quality, the apples have been wasted as we couldn’t sell them in the market,” said the farmers.
Chhiring Tenzing Lama of Simikot Rural Municipality-4 said that he had stored 30 quintals of apples after they remained unsold in the market.
“I have been feeding 15 quintals of apples to my livestock,” he said. “Around 12 quintal have rotten while I have made dried apple chips out of some.”
Out of 16 households of the village, each house has owned at least 150 apple trees. After apples stopped getting enough consumers, at least 20 quintals of fruits at each household are waiting to be sold.
The probability of the apples getting sold is nominal, said Lama.
Farmers of Thehe, Bargaun, Langdu, torpa, Burause, Lower and Upper Simikot in Humla have been worried after the market consumption of apple started deteriorating.