Farmers in rural areas of Kaski are struggling to sell their tomato crop this year as the wholesale market has refused to purchase them. Wholesalers have refused to buy from local farmers saying that tomatoes imported from India are much cheaper. With market prices significantly lower than in previous years, farmers are concerned about recovering their farming expenses. As a result, they are forced to frequently lower their prices to compete with imported tomatoes, leading to further financial strain. The price of local tomatoes has dropped, thanks to unchecked import and sale of  tomatoes at much lower rates, causing distress for farmers like Chitra Nath Poudel of Hemja, Pokhara-25. Despite about 20 years of experience in the trade and an annual average income of Rs 5 million from 90 tomato tunnels, Poudel is facing a new challenge this year—selling his crop at an unprecedentedly low rate. Poudel's income has almost halved this year. In particular, the plummeting prices have the new farmers discouraged.

It’s not only the farmers getting hit, though.

Collection centers have also suffered from falling tomato prices. A few days ago, Bhumikot Agriculture Cooperative of Rupa Rural Municipality-7 canceled the supply agreement with two wholesale markets of Pokhara, which used to buy almost six tons of tomato from the cooperative annually. “This year, they purchased from other sources at half the price,” Nawaraj Poudel, a farmer from Rupa-7  and chairperson of the cooperative, said. In an attempt to recoup the expenses, Poudel has found an individual, Chudamani Baral of Khudi in Pokhara-30, who has agreed to sell all the collected tomatoes door-to-door. Baral is using a cart to sell the tomatoes locally. Gita Kumari Sapkota of Madi Rural Municipality in Kaski, who has been farming tomatoes for almost a decade, is also facing difficulties in selling her produce due to reduced market prices. A local collector, who used to buy 500 kg of tomatoes from her daily, has stopped coming, leaving her unsure of how and when to sell huge quantities of tomatoes. Sapkota earns around Rs 200,000 annually from tomatoes grown in three tunnels. Amid rapid urbanization in Pokhara, tomato farming expanded in surrounding rural areas due to a business-friendly environment, according to the Agriculture Section of the Pokhara Metropolitan Office. During the Covid-19 pandemic, many people returned to their villages and turned to farming, with a particular interest in tomato farming, according to Manoj Poudel, Chief of the Agriculture Section of Rupa Rural Municipality in Kaski. He noted that the registration of farming groups and agriculture farms in the rural municipality office has been increasing in recent years. The local government bodies are now facing the challenge of sustaining the motivation of local farmers. To address this, some local bodies have made arrangements to compensate the farmers when exported products push local product prices downward. However, according to Manohar Kadariya, Chief of the Agriculture Section of the Pokhara Metropolitan Office, no individual or farm has claimed this facility yet.