Farmers in the northern region of Sarlahi, known as a major tomato-producing area, have stopped harvesting their tomatoes due to a dramatic fall in market prices. With rates dropping as low as Rs 2 to 4 per kilogram, many farmers say it is no longer worth picking the produce.
Tomatoes are now rotting in the fields, according to local farmers who are frustrated by the lack of market value. “At this price, we can’t even recover our investment,” said Parikshan Mahato, a farmer from Dharatol, Harion Municipality-3. He said the initial market response was encouraging, but prices dropped steeply after tomatoes imported from outside the region flooded the market. “We’ve spent a lot on plowing, planting, and labor. But now, the cost of transporting tomatoes to the market is more than what we get from selling them,” Mahato said. “Even hiring laborers to pick the tomatoes costs money.”
The situation has become so dire that villagers have started picking tomatoes from the fields for their own consumption, said another farmer, Kamal Mahato. “It’s better to let them rot in the field than spend more money trying to sell them,” he said. “This year, it’s been impossible to even recover the production cost.” According to Kamal, tomato crates that used to sell for Rs 2,500 to 3,000 at the start of the season now struggle to fetch even Rs 50. “Our markets are Lalbandi, Nawalpur, and Hariban. But even here, imported tomatoes have taken over,” he added.
Sarlahi-grown tomatoes are usually sold in major cities including Kathmandu and Pokhara. However, with low demand and rising supply from other regions, local farmers say they are left with no option but to abandon their harvests.
Similarly, in Dhading, a district just outside the federal capital Kathmandu, cabbage farmers are now doing the unthinkable—destroying their harvest. In a heart-wrenching scene along the Prithvi Highway near Trishuli riverside in Gajuri, heaps of cabbages lie discarded, chopped and abandoned. These are the same cabbages that could have turned into delicious meals in households across the country. Instead, they’ve become a symbol of despair for the farmers who nurtured them with care and hard labor.
“We raised these cabbages like our own children, investing so much time and money,” said one distressed farmer. “But when it came time to sell, there was no price. We were forced to destroy them in the field.” Even when farmers pleaded with traders to buy the cabbage at just Rs 2–4 per kilogram, they were turned down. With no option left, many resorted to cutting the cabbages and using them as organic fertilizer. “Had the government stepped in to guarantee a fair price, we wouldn't be in this mess,” the farmers said, adding that the pressure of crop loss has brought stress and tension into their families, especially for those who had taken loans to grow the produce.
Now, as they clear out the fields of unsold cabbage, many farmers are preparing to plant chaite rice instead. “Last year, we earned up to Rs 200,000 from cabbage sales. This year, we barely made Rs 5,000 to Rs 7,000,” one farmer said. Some had invested up to Rs 70,000 in cabbage farming—all of which has now gone to waste.
Ironically, while around 33 percent of the vegetables sold in Kathmandu come from Dhading, Nepal imported over Rs 35bn worth of green vegetables from India last year. Farmers here question how local produce grown with such hard work is left to rot while foreign vegetables dominate the market.
