Home ›› 29 Jul 2022 ›› Nation
Marginal farmers in Barishal district are passing a busy time preparing seedbeds of various early winter vegetables to make a handsome profit.
In the upcoming winter, farmers are expecting bumper production of organic vegetables as the weather is favourable.
Farmers of the region hope that inauguration of the much-awaited Padma Bridge will create a new trend in the winter vegetable business this year.
They said the produced vegetables of the district can be transported to the capital within three to three and a half hours. As a result, the farmers will get a fair price.
Department of Agricultural Extension (DAE) said farmers of 10 upazilas of the district have cultivated winter vegetables on 500 hectares of land this season. Already 80 per cent of the early cultivation has made an appearance in the market.
Marginal farmers in the district are passing busy times to cultivate various early winter vegetables including gourd, radish, cauliflower, cabbage, tomato, radish, aubergine, bitter gourd, beans, and malabar spinach (puishak).
At present, the vegetable price and demand in the retail and wholesale markets are good enough for the farmers to be benefited financially from cultivating these vegetables.
Buyers are happy that the prices of these vegetables have started to come down gradually as supply increases.
According to the traders, due to the decrease of middlemen, the wholesalers can buy straight from the farmers.
Farmers Sariful and Sabuj Mia of Nalua Union under Bakerganj upazila of the district said they are currently cultivating gourd, brinjal, bean and tomato on their cropland.
Sadar upazila’s farmer Mostofa said there are currently 42 gourd plants in his vegetable garden. He has already sold about 2,000 gourds in the last two months and expects to sell about 5,000 more in the upcoming months.
He also said that water accumulates in the low land during the monsoon. He cultivates paddy during monsoon, but it is not profitable enough. Winter vegetable cultivation brings him more profit as they are less disease prone.
According to the farmers, the vegetables of this region were only sold locally in the past. Due to transportation problems, the farmers could not send their vegetables or other products to Dhaka or other districts.
But now that the Padma Bridge is open to the public, the farmers of the southern region will be able to send their products to other districts and benefit more.
Ganesh Chandra Dutta, former president of Barishal Multipurpose Wholesale Market Traders Association, said the prices of vegetables have decreased in the last 15 days as the supply of winter vegetables increased.
Currently, cauliflower is being sold at the wholesale market of Barishal at Tk 70, cowpea at Tk 60, cabbage at Tk 35-40, radish at Tk 25-30, beans and turnip at Tk 70 and green chilli at Tk 80 per kg.
Deputy Director of DAE Harun-or-Rashid said farmers are getting their expected benefit by cultivating early winter vegetables like beans, gourds, malabar spinach, aubergine, bitter gourd, and spinach. Since the weather is favourable, vegetable cultivation is going as expected from the beginning, he added.
“Our field-level agricultural officers are providing full cooperation to the farmers to make profitable the cultivation of these early varieties vegetables,” the DAE official said.
