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Chronic kidney disease (CKD) often shows no symptoms early on; diabetes and high blood pressure are its main causes, and nephrologist Dr Shawkat Azad advises people at risk to have creatinine, eGFR and urine albumin tests.
CropsGopalganj grew jute on more land than targeted and produced 52,656 tonnes; with mills and stockists competing, prices have reached Tk 4,700 to 5,300 a maund, leaving farmers Tk 1,200 to 1,500 profit after costs.
EnvironmentBrazil's official PRODES satellite system recorded 3,335 square kilometres of Amazon forest cleared from August 2025 to July 2026, about 42 percent less than a year earlier and the lowest since records began in 1988.
FisheriesTwo studies found high levels of plastic particles in Sundarbans river water and silt, plastic in mud crabs' gills and guts, and lead, nickel and cadmium well above safe limits in three popular fish of the Pasur river.
EnvironmentA BRAC project funded by the Bangladesh Climate Change Trust Fund has collected about 150 tonnes of waste on St Martin's Island in 11 months and composts its organic waste, but its first phase ends on 30 November with no decision on renewal.
AgribusinessLess than 0.3 percent of the 15 million-plus tonnes of vegetables Bangladesh grows each year is exported; under Swisscontact's SAFE-BD project, IFIC Bank is building a model that lends on farmers' production, quality and export readiness, starting in Jessore and Narsingdi.
BCIC's Ashuganj urea factory, shut by the gas shortage, could produce 528,000 tonnes a year if it receives about 56 million cubic feet of gas a day without interruption, cutting fertiliser imports and foreign-currency spending, people in the sector say.
At a three-day workshop of the SAARC Agriculture Centre and SHISHUK at BARD in Cumilla, about 50 delegates from eight countries called for sharing technology and experience as floods, drought and salinity threaten fisheries.
FisheriesHit again and again by virus, salinity shortages, drought and heavy rain in shrimp, farmers in Paikgachha and Dumuria, Khulna, are raising native shol (snakehead) in small ponds; Baduria village alone has more than 300 snakehead ponds.
CropsSamir Hossain Saddam, a schoolteacher in Bera, Pabna, planted black rice on 23 decimals after watching videos online; the crop will be cut within 10 to 15 days, and he plans to grow more if it yields well.
Visiting the Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute (BARI), President Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir said farming is no longer profitable and called for storage and processing technology, cold storage and better terms for agricultural scientists.
CropsFarmers in Tarash, Ullapara and around Chalan Beel say several times more pesticide no longer controls stem borer; agriculture officials urge integrated pest management and more organic fertiliser.
CropsIn Tanore, Rajshahi, transplanted aman paddy is yellowing and collapsing under what farmers call a "satra" pest attack; insecticides for planthopper and rot have not worked, and drought has pushed costs to Tk 14,000 to 16,000 a bigha.
VegetablesAbdul Matin of Jangirai village in Juri, Moulvibazar, invested Tk 40,000 to bring 80 decimals of overgrown fallow land under tomato, bottle gourd, cucumber and yellow watermelon, using mulch, shade net and grafting to grow tomatoes even in summer.
At a "Smart agriculture, shared future" seminar in Dhaka, Chinese embassy economic and commercial counsellor Song Yang called for stronger China-Bangladesh cooperation in modern farming, farm machinery, seed development and food processing.
HealthWith fevers in every household as the season changes, Dr Mahbuba Shabnam of Green Life Medical College advises going to hospital at once if fever comes with breathing trouble, repeated vomiting, bleeding or reduced urine.
Not one of the eight community clinics on the Brahmaputra chars of Chilmari, Kurigram, can handle a delivery, and most of what kills char people goes untreated there, writer and organiser Nahid Hasan says in a column.
Facing the Hijaz famine known as the Year of Ashes and the plague of Amwas around AH 18, Caliph Umar emptied the treasury, brought grain from the provinces, suspended zakat collection and chose not to enter the plague zone.
Okra blossom in Sirajganj, dew on a creeper in Rangamati, a farmer taking his cattle to plough in Rangpur and Malabar spinach for sale in Cumilla: Bangladesh's fields and roads on 17 October through Prothom Alo's photographers.
FisheriesA 90-kilogram baghair (goonch catfish) netted in the Brahmaputra at Chilmari, Kurigram, was cut up and sold at Tk 1,500 a kilogram, although the species is critically endangered on the IUCN list and catching it is a punishable offence.
IslamForeign visitors to Medina on umrah or any visit visa can now join free Quran classes at Masjid an-Nabawi, and the Islamic University of Madinah has opened a six-week Arabic course for them.
EnvironmentA University of Rajshahi study finds that only 1 percent of Chalan Beel's 5,097 square kilometres has very high groundwater potential, with falling rainfall and boro irrigation pumping among the main causes.
The agriculture department expects Lakshmipur to sell about Tk 710 crore of areca nut this season; more than a hundred markets are busy, and the climbers who pick the nuts earn Tk 2,500 to 3,000 a day.
Suman Ahmed of Babuganj, Barishal, used his earnings as a painter abroad to buy the land his father once sharecropped; his 173-decimal farm grows papaya, vegetables and fish and aims to raise two million papaya seedlings this year.
Watch
VideoIn the latest AgriView episode, agricultural economist Wandile Sihlobo asks whether the enlarged BRICS bloc is opening real markets for South African produce, or mostly producing talk.
VideoAt Bindhara in Panchbibi, Joypurhat, small dark-skinned Black Baby watermelons hang from bamboo trellises. The 60-day crop needs 50 grams of seed a bigha, yields 1,200 to 1,500 fruits or 4 to 4.5 tonnes, and at Tk 30 a kilo earns far more than other field crops.
VideoShykh Seraj examines the government's first 180 days in agriculture, from farm loan waivers and farmer cards to crop insurance and canal excavation.
In pictures
GalleryIn pictures: Sukhpara's betel vines yield leaves 11 months a year1 photos
GalleryA desert elephant carried a dead calf for hours, but it was not her own1 photos
GalleryDucks at play in Bogura's 'lotus pond', where the lotuses are long gone1 photos
GalleryGlimpse, 14 October: nets on Kaptai Lake, a bee on sponge gourd, a barbet on moringa1 photos
GalleryBefore winter, Rajshahi's sap tappers start shaving date palms1 photos
GalleryLate-autumn mist settles over Sylhet's haor in the afternoons1 photos
GalleryFrom a sack to a campus lake: 14 lesser whistling ducks freed in PabnaSection
An African rhinoceros alone since 2013, a hamadryas baboon, a kangaroo and seven more animals at the National Zoo in Mirpur have no mate of their own species, in pictures by Prothom Alo's Mir Hossain.
EnvironmentAfter the driest April-to-September in more than a century, the Environment Agency declared severe drought in Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, Somerset and East and West Sussex, and will step up checks on farm water abstraction.
EnvironmentCropLife Europe says container collection schemes now run in 24 EU member states, the plastic collection rate has risen from 65% to 71%, and more than 92% of what is collected is recycled.
CropsJapan's JIRCAS and the International Rice Research Institute signed an agreement in Tokyo on 13 October to study soil microbes and nitrogen fixation in rice and the effect of alternate wetting and drying on methane and water use.
EnvironmentDoodh Ganga, the Jhelum tributary that supplies much of uptown Srinagar, is losing snow and glacier melt while construction has buried part of its course, leaving households with dry taps for days.
