Sarlahi paddy farmers face shortage of workers

By Our Correspondent

Sarlahi, Oct. 31: Farmers in Sarlahi district have complained that they are facing a shortage of workers to harvest paddy.

Farmers in the northern part of the district are now busy harvesting paddy.

Kailash Baniya, a farmer of Ishworpur Municipality-12, Gharibathaan, said that it was difficult to find labourers when everyone was busy harvesting paddy at the same time.

Now the practice of exchanging work is disappearing in the district and many farmers are harvesting paddy by hiring labourers.

Farmers have said that it is difficult to find workers who cut paddy and if found the workers, they ask up to Rs. 400 as wage of a morning.

They complained that the rice production is not good this year due to the outbreak of various insects, but they have to pay more to the labourers hired for harvesting paddy.

As the youths tend to fly overseas as migrant workers, framers face the shortage of labourers during both planting and harvesting seasons.

Binti Prasad Chaudhary, a farmer of Bishnu Rural Municipality-3, located near the Indian border area, said that it was difficult to cultivate land in lack of workers.

Although rice cutting machines are in use in other districts, no such machine has entered Sarlahi.

Kamal Dev Prasad Kushwaha, chief of Agricultural Knowledge Centre, Malangawa, said that there is a problem in cultivating every crop in the district due to lack of workers.

Even though threshing machines have reached everywhere, paddy  cutting machines are not available in Sarlahi, he added.

Kushwaha said that they were encouraging farmers towards mechanisation.

He said that rather than the knowledge centre, the local level itself should help the farmers cultivate crops in a way so that the farmers could make more income. 

According to the District Agricultural Knowledge Centre, Malanagwa, paddy is cultivated in 46,500 hectares  of land in Sarlahi.