Bright prospect of commercial summer tomato farming

Cultivation of summer tomato shows bright prospects in the Rajshahi district, including its vast Barind tract, as many farmers are seen getting lucrative prices from the cash crop farming for the last couple of years.

Summer tomato farming has started bringing diversification in the region’s cropping system, besides creating scopes of harvesting tomato during the summer and rainy seasons instead of only in the conventional winter season.

Tomato farming appeared as a fortune changer for many farmers as it made many peasants solvent in the region this year besides infusing dynamism into the local economy.

Bangladesh Agriculture Research Institute (BARI) has released three hybrid varieties namely hybrid tomato-4, 8 and 11 for the summer season. It has also adopted need-based measures to make the varieties popular among the farmers.

The On-Farm Research Division (OFRD) of BARI has been working to boost summer tomato production through expanding its cultivation in the region under the “summer tomato adaptive trial production and community-based pilot production programme” project.