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FruitsA sudden 10-minute storm this week damaged the banana, papaya and other crops of about 700 farmers in four unions of Madhupur, Tangail; the agriculture office puts the first estimate of the loss at about Tk 100 crore.
VegetablesThe potato season has begun in Ullapara, Sirajganj, with a target of 1,038 hectares this year; at the market, Romana seed potatoes are in greatest demand.
EnvironmentAfter seeing lightning strike a palm tree in 2002, Abul Kalam Azad of Sayadhangara, Sirajganj, began sowing palm seeds; thousands of his palms now line embankments, roads and school grounds.
EnvironmentA highly salt-tolerant, rice-like plant has spread over about four kilometres of Dimer Char at the sea mouth; Bagerhat's agricultural extension office wants it studied, though it may be a wild cordgrass.
HealthIn a controlled trial, colon cancer patients who exercised for three years under a trainer had less recurrence; in Pittsburgh, UPMC is moving to put such programmes under health insurance.
HealthA pupil at a government primary school in Chilmari, Kurigram, found insects inside a school-feeding bun; the upazila education officer has ordered the whole batch returned and left unpaid.
GalleryWith hilsa fishing banned, Barishal fishers mend nets by the road; a scarecrow guards a Bogura field, kenaf flowers in Sirajganj and betel growers cut kash grass in Khulna, as seen by Prothom Alo's photographers.
HealthChildhood protection does not last for life; Dhaka Medical College microbiologist Dr Kakoli Haldar says a Td or Tdap booster is due at 11 to 12 and every 10 years in adults.
OpinionMufti Shaikh Muhammad Usman Goni of the Bangladesh National Imam Association writes that Islam sees all people as children of Adam and seeks a worldwide brotherhood.
CookingSoaked sago pearls, mashed potato and crushed peanuts make a dough for crisp, spicy donuts; the ingredients and steps are here.
EnvironmentWriting in Down To Earth, Ranjan Panda says the early arrival of winter birds at Odisha's Chilika lake should be read alongside a warming, less predictable lake and Arctic, and calls for fisherfolk to help monitor it.
EnvironmentA study in Earth's Future finds about 77% of pantropical forests were hotter and drier than usual during the 2023-24 El Nino, and warns such heat could be normal within 20 years under likely emissions.
EnvironmentThe State of Global Air Quality Funding 2026 report finds outdoor air quality funding matched fossil fuel-prolonging aid for the first time in 2024, while the most polluted countries and super pollutants remain underfunded.
LivestockUSDA's Beijing office says Chinese feed mills are swapping corn for wheat, barley and sorghum as hog losses push buyers toward cheaper rations.
LivestockKansas State University's Meat Demand Monitor found willingness to pay for ribeye rose to $20.71 a pound and ground beef to $12.11, while 37% of consumers said their finances were worse than a year ago.
VegetablesA young farmer living with albinism in Biturana Ward, Tanzania, built an onion business after training and start-up seed and fertiliser from the YEFFA programme, and now employs five workers.
CropsUSDA's office in New Delhi now expects India to make 29.5 million tonnes of sugar in 2026-27, down from 33.6 million, as a rainfall deficit, waterlogging and red borer cut cane yields and sugar recovery.
AgrotechIn a strategy paper in the EFSA Journal, the European Food Safety Authority names cultivated meat and precision fermentation as priority areas and proposes a human-led, AI-enabled risk assessment model to avoid approval delays.
LivestockReplacing about 12% of a typical Kenyan dairy ration with Calliandra or Leucaena leaves reduced methane by roughly 10 to 13% per unit of feed in laboratory tests, without lowering digestibility; trials in live cows come next.
LivestockThando Soroshi of Lady Grey in South Africa's Eastern Cape now keeps about 2,000 broilers, a pig herd producing some 300 piglets a year, sheep, goats and cattle, and runs a shisanyama.
OpinionIn a Krishi Jagran column, Tarun Shridhar says Northeast India could feed itself with fish and export ornamental species if cold storage, credit, cage culture and market links were built at district level.
VegetablesThursday's downpour left water standing on low fields in Birganj, Dinajpur, threatening early potatoes, cauliflower, brinjal and other winter vegetables; the agriculture office says losses will be limited if the water drains quickly.
VegetablesAfter a canal in the Kainmara watershed was re-excavated under a Dutch-Bangladeshi water management project, 70 to 80 percent of irrigation uses canal water; 92 canals and 71 reservoirs serve five south-western districts.
Homestead farmingOutside Magura's government college, Zaheda Begum sells male flowers picked from the pumpkin vines in her yard; as townspeople buy them for fritters, some farmers now grow pumpkin for the flowers.
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, 9 October: mended nets, a scarecrow, kenaf in bloom1 photos
GalleryGlimpse, 8 October: jute on a bridge rail, bitter gourd trellises, winter seedlings1 photos
GalleryIn pictures: dawn at Barishal's Port Road fish landing centre1 photos
Gallery24,000 entries: highlights from Bird Photographer of the Year 20261 photos
GalleryIn pictures: Rangpur's sagar banana boom, from orchard to truck1 photos
GalleryPictures: autumn in Jaflong, with kash flowers on the Piyain riverbed1 photos
GalleryPictures: a misty morning in the Rangamati hills, from paddy fields to the lakeSection
EnvironmentHaze from burning forests and peatland in Indonesia has blanketed South-East Asia for more than a month; on Friday schools closed in four Malaysian states and two federal territories, and Singapore's air was rated very unhealthy.
AgrotechBangladesh Satellite Company Limited is planning an earth observation satellite with radar imaging, which sees through cloud and rain, for crop health, yield estimates and drought, plus a four-satellite AIS constellation for shipping.
EnvironmentSnails and mussels are stripped from Chalan Beel in Sirajganj, Pabna and Natore and trucked to farms in the south-west; the trade feeds poor families, but a zoologist warns of damage to soil fertility and the food chain.
