By Our Correspondent, Gorkha, Apr 19: Massive hailstones of Saturday have caused severe damage to crops in different places of the district.

The farmers, who are growing vegetables commercially, have been affected badly by the hailstorm that lashed the district Saturday night.

“The hailstones have damaged our crops ready to harvest. Our efforts to grow crops have gone to waste,” said Menuka who had not sold even a basket of vegetables from the farm.

“The strong wind with hailstorm has damaged vegetables worth around Rs 300,000. I have invested around Rs 100,000 for vegetable production,” she said.

She expressed her grievances that she would not be able to pay the loan after her crops were damaged by the hails.

The hails damaged crops grown in around a dozen agriculture farms at Harmi.

Different agro farms, including Dhakal Agriculture Farms and Veterinary, Sapkota Agriculture Farm and Veterinary, Badri Dhakal, Bhuwaneshwor Bhatta, Ram Bahadur Baniya, Samsher Gurung, Ishwori Dhakal, Shiva Dhakal, Amrit Dhakal and Pradip Ghimire agriculture farm are growing vegetables and crops commercially.

The hails destroyed vegetables worth Rs 6,000,000 in several farms, said Ramji Sapkota, secretary at the Agriculture Network of Harmi.

“We were preparing to supply vegetables to Thatipokhari for sale by making passes from the Rural Municipality during the lockdown. The hails damaged vegetables worth Rs 350,000 in my farm. We are still collecting data of the losses,” he said.

The hailstones have completely damaged vegetables including tomatoes, cucumbers, beans, cowpeas, bottle gourds and pumpkins. Almost all farmers are worried after they faced losses caused by the snowfall.