Bitter pill

The government must ensure that sugarcane farmers are paid in full immediately.

Most farmers often don’t have much reason to visit Kathmandu as they spend their lives toiling in their fields. More so for sugarcane farmers, who would have no reason to stay away from their fields in the thick of the harvesting season. But like last year, they are in the capital city again. The industrious farmers are leaving their work behind to visit Kathmandu as they are duped time and again—by the sugar mills they sell their crop to, and the government that is supposed to support them—as the factory owners fail to pay them their dues that run into hundreds of millions.