Mahottari, November 21:

A far-northern Maisthan Village Development Committee (VDC) of Mahottari district is famous for ginger farming. Previously, the VDC was popular for pointed-gourd. According to the local farmers, they began ginger farming as an alternative cash crop when a mysterious disease hit the pointed-gourd farming hard. “Ginger farming has become a reliable sources of income for locals,” said Som Bahadur Karki, a resident of Maisthan VDC-4, “I cultivated two quintals of ginger last year.” He said that he has earned Rs 8,000 from the ginger, as he sold a kg for Rs 40.

Adding that they have cultivated ginger in around 500 Bighas (measure of land, which is five-eighth of an acre) of land in the VDC, Dhan Bahadur Thyangwa, former VDC chairman said, “I have begun the ginger farming since this year.” Owing to a lack of irrigation, they could not get good paddy crop, earlier. And the farmers did start vegetable farming as an alternative source of income. In the initial phase, they did tomato farming and slowly switched to pointed-gourd farming. “Due to more competition in the market and lack of technicians, tomato farming also started loosing its charm,” farmers said, “then we adopted pointed-gourd farming. But a mysterious disease hit the pointed-gourd hard and we switched to the ginger farming that is safer in comparison.”