This story was translated from Nepali. Read the original in Nepali
Dharan. With festivals such as Dashain and Tihar approaching, the trade in goats has started to pick up in Dharan, Sunsari. More and more farmers and traders are bringing goats from various hill and Tarai areas of Koshi Province to the agricultural produce market in Dharan Sub-Metropolitan City-13.
Goats are regularly bought and sold at the market along with daily consumer goods. The market is especially busy with goat trading on Thursdays and Fridays.
Dal Bahadur Kathaya of Dharan-14 has been in the goat business for about 15 years. Besides raising goats at home, he also sells goats bought from hill districts such as Dhankuta and Panchthar. He said that although the business sometimes makes a profit and sometimes a loss, it is what runs his household.
Chandra Khadka, a trader from Kanepokhari in Morang, has also been in the goat trade for 23 years. He comes to Dharan every week and buys and sells about 100 to 150 goats at a time. He said goats bought in Dharan are sent to markets including Kathmandu, Janakpur, Lahan, Itahari, Inaruwa and Pokhara.
According to Laxman Bhattarai, chair of the Dharan Agricultural Produce Market Management Committee, more than 3,000 goats are normally sold from the market each week. During Dashain and Tihar the number rises to more than 10,000 a week, he said.
According to the committee, 160,000 goats were sold from the Dharan agricultural produce market in fiscal year 2082/83, amounting to trade of about Rs 3 billion. Trade worth about Rs 460 million took place during last year’s festival period alone.
Chair Bhattarai said goat trade is expected to rise this year too. According to him, goat trade at the market has already grown by about 15 percent this year compared with last year.
Farmers and traders come to Dharan’s goat market from the hill districts of Koshi Province as well as from Tarai areas such as Itahari, Kanepokhari and Belbari. Chair Bhattarai said the well-run market has given hill farmers a chance to sell their produce and has also helped create trade and jobs locally.
