By Musa Kamal Yousafzai
Tallash village in lower Dir district of Khyber Pukhtunkhwa is famous for its vegetable and especially tomato production in the country. The area produces tons of tomatoes and other vegetables in every season. According to the farmers of the area, the vegetable production here in Lower Dir-KP had always been impressive as the area produces quality vegetables that besides the local market has also captured the international market due to its quality and taste.
However, the farming in this enrich soil has been on decline as the water scarcity for irrigation has forced the farmers to leave farming and adopt alternate jobs. Due to the unavailability of water and high prices of water tankers, most of the farmers are now considering other options for financial growth due to which vegetables production of this area is declining with every passing year.
Meanwhile, environmentalists believe that climate change is a real threat to the farming across the world and the global community was doing the best to overcome threat of climate change.While talking to Voice of KP, Mansoor khan, a local farmer from Dir Lower said that farming has fetched good revenue for him and his family once. He said that the vegetable produced in their fields were famous in local as well as international market because of its best quality and taste.
“Now in the current time, the situation is completely changed and farming has now become a nightmare for many due to rising inflation and water scarcity while the dry spells have drastically affected the production of vegetable”, said Mansoor. He lamented that the cost of farming has increased two-fold as compared to the earning from crops, which is pushing many farmers to quit this profession.
“Besides other expenses, farmers in Lower Dir have to bear the expenses of water for irrigating their fields which is also one of the reasons of decline in vegetable production here”, said the farmer.Mansoor claimed that for one harvesting season, a famer on Lower Dir has to spend about Rs80,000 on irrigating the field. He suggested if the government facilitates KP farmer like Panjab does so then demand and supply of the province can be met easily specially Tallash village of Lower Dir can produce a large quantity of vegetables.
