Kupwara, Nov 3: The residents of Budnamal, a remote village close to the Line of Control (LoC) in north Kashmir’s Kupwara district are worried as their potato crop is not fetching better prices.
The villagers earn their livelihood from the locally cultivated potato and this year the village has produced 27,200 quintals of potato spread over 3400 kanal land but due to uneasy access to vegetable mandis at Srinagar and other mandis across Kashmir, the farmers do not get their due share of their labour.
The residents complained that the lack of irrigation facilities affects the production of their crop and with favorable conditions they could double the productivity.
They said that the Department of Irrigation had constructed an irrigation canal here but it had remained non-functional for the past decade.
The farmers alleged that the authorities were not taking steps for proper marketing of their crop.
They said that with proper marketing, they could get better revenue but nothing was done in this regard.
“Since we cannot afford vehicular transportation of our crops, the government should take concrete steps for its marketing,” a local said.
Meanwhile, an official of the Department of Agriculture said that the potato cultivated in Budnamal village is of the best quality and farmers across Kashmir could benefit by cultivating the same crop.
He said that a proposal had been forwarded to Director Agriculture, Kashmir for better transportation of crops of Budnamal including potatoes, maize and pulses.