Tilahar and Khilung in Syangja are popular for orange farming. The farm’s productivity has increased with the increase in farmer’s ability to cultivate a large area of land. The farmers are identifying and leveraging growth areas for productive investment with a right mix of agriculture inputs including farm workforce. 

Moreover, the farmers have adopted improved cultivation techniques, rootstock evaluation, harvesting, and storage. However, the gross income margin of the farm households has not yet increased. The average farm size and gross farm receipts are also not linear. The buying capacity of the farmer has hardly changed.

The income is not like when the farmers first embarked on fruit farming. The farmers are selling direct from grove and making direct transaction. The disintermediation of middlemen can be seen that poses less risks of logistical challenges. The value chain has shrunk, speeding up the average delivery time, however; the final consumer price when the farm produce reaches the market is not falling down.

‘Sometimes, the price exceeds double the price the farm sells at grove. The orange sells at rupees 39 per kg at grove, while it sells at rupees 140 per kg in retail market in the big cities like Pokhara and Kathmandu. The purchasing power of the farmers and final consumers are continuously eroding, with indirect market forces placing a ceiling on market’s price and profits, while exploiting the price gap,’ a producer said. 

‘The committee set price threshold is not letting us sell at a higher price,’ he added. Yet, the businessmen who are procuring the produces directly from the grove are not selling it direct in the market.