Selling vegetables and farm produce is not a problem anymore for the farmers of Tsirang Toed Gewog in Tsirang. The farmers were previously challenged by the lack of a vegetable market. Today, their worries are no more as the gewog administration has allowed them to do business from the gewog office on Sundays since last month.
More than 40 farmers of Tsirang Toed display their farm produce at the gewog office’s parking every Sunday. Their customers are mostly civil servants working in the school, the gewog office and the hospital.
Farmers said they will no longer have to travel to Damphu town which is about 23 kilometres away, to sell their surplus produce.
“Before we couldn’t make the best use of the surplus vegetables. But the initiative has helped us to sell it. Now, we have plans to scale up vegetable production,” said Dechen Dorji, a farmer.
“It is costly for us to travel to Damphu to sell a few kilograms of vegetables. Selling farm produces from here can save both time and expenditure,” said Ran Maya, another farmer.
Due to the favourable climate in Tsirang Toed, farmers grow varieties of vegetables and fruits here.
“There were only 18 of them when we first opened the space for the farmers. Farmers were able to sell all their farm produces. But today, 43 farmers have turned up and we received quite a good number of customers as well,” said Tshering Tenzin, the Gewog Agriculture Extension Supervisor.
Meanwhile, the gewog administration has plans to construct a proper vegetable shed in the next financial year.
“For now, we are thinking of constructing a temporary vegetable shed in a space just below the present location. And if the initiative proves successful, we will allocate a separate budget to construct a vegetable shed,” said Nanda Lal Kharel, Tsirang Toed Gup.
The initiative is expected to further encourage farmers to grow more vegetables and fruits on their farmland.
Pema Tshewang, Tsirang
Edited by Tshering Zam
