Farmers of Annapurna Rural Municipality-4, Narchyang in Myagdi have stored oranges in the first-of-its-kind cooling center being operated in the district.
Farmers cultivating seasonal crops have made safe storage of orange in the cooling center as a strategy to earn good chunk of income in the off season.
The farmers have expected that they would get easy market and appropriate value of their stored orange in opportune time.
Operator of New Annapurna Agriculture and Livestock Multi Agro, Prem Gurung informed that the orange produced at Narchyang, Bansbot, Gadpar and Dharap have been stored in the cooling center. "I have stored around 10,000 oranges - -that were picked from my own farm and bought from local farmers – in the cooling center", Gurung said.
"It is as part of my preparation to send the stored orange to market in coming March", he shared. The market price of orange per kilogram now is Rs 60 to Rs 70, he said, adding it would be sold out at the price ranging from Rs 160 to Rs 200 in March-April.
The chilling center having a capacity of storing 10,000 kilograms was established with the assistance of the Orange Commercial Production and Processing Centre under the Prime Minister Agriculture Modernization Project.
Operator Gurung has a plan to store apple, potato and other veggie items once the orange storage turns successful.
The orange zone office under the Prime Minster Agriculture Modernization Project had provided a grant amount of Rs 1.3 million in the fiscal year 2022/23 for the setup of cooling center.
The cooling center was established at the total cost of Rs 2.1 million. Operator Gurung said he personally invested Rs 800,000 for the infrastructure development and procurement of equipment.
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