ILAM: Farmers in a dozen VDCs

of eastern Ilam have taken up commercial farming of Kiwi fruit, a fuzzy brown egg-shaped edible berry with slightly tart green flesh, belonging to a cultivar group of the woody vine Actinidia deliciosa.

The attraction is because a single Kiwi fruit plant can generate income of Rs 25,000-30,000 yearly and has a lifespan of 15 years. Kiwi fruits are borne on one-year-old and older shrubs.

More than 100 farmers at Sumbek, Sulubung, Sakhejung, Chamauta, Pyang,

Jamuna, Maipokhari, Puyajhum, Mabu, Maiyumjhua, Bakhete and some other VDCs as well as in Ilam

Municipality are into Kiwi fruit farming.

“We started the commercial Kiwi farming after Environment Protection and

Organic Energy Pvt. Ltd. provided Kiwi seedlings,” said Tek Bahadur Bista, a farmer of Sakhejung. Bista has planted more than 200 Kiwi plants on around 15 ropani of his land.

Another farmer of Sumbeka, Lila Luintel, has also planted 150 Kiwi seedlings on an equal area of land. Quitting the driving profession, Lila is engaged in Kiwi fruit farming. In Sumbeka alone, at least 1,500 seedlings of kiwifruit were planted, said Taramani Khatiwada, chief of the organic energy company.

According to Khatiwada, half a slice of Kiwi fruit provides vitamin equal to that provided by four lemons, 16 apples, two oranges and eight bananas.