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CookingAn easy labra of pumpkin, potato, pointed gourd, aubergine, raw banana, yardlong beans, taro, carrot and papaya, tempered with panch phoron and finished with ghee and roasted spices.
OpinionWriting in Dhaka Post, Khulna University economics PhD researcher Rakib Hossain argues that from St Martin's to Sadapathor and Dhaka's lost wetlands, development accounts never price the nature destroyed, and calls for real social and environmental costs to be counted before projects are approved.
AgribusinessIndian 5 percent broken parboiled rice reached $387-392 a tonne, Vietnam's hit a two-month high of $440-450 and Thailand's $480, with India's crop possibly set to shrink for the first time in about a decade.
FruitsEntomologists at Bangladesh Agricultural University say they have recorded the whitefly Paraleyrodes pseudonaranjae in Bangladesh for the first time, confirmed by DNA barcoding; its share rose between June and December, but its effect on coconut yields is not yet known.
HealthMany low-income families like Khaleda and Alfaz in Dhaka's Rampura are dropping protein as prices outpace wages; food inflation reached 7.22 percent in September, and Bangladesh ranks 84th of 122 countries on the 2026 Global Hunger Index.
OpinionWriting in Dhaka Post, Dr Md Ashraful Islam of Rajshahi University says 97 percent of e-waste collection in Bangladesh is informal and calls for producer responsibility, take-back at shops and a national data system.
Daily lifeWeeks after raising the 12 kg cylinder to Tk 1,837 on 4 October, the Bangladesh Energy Regulatory Commission will hold a public hearing on 29 October on proposals to raise bottling, distributor and retail charges.
EnvironmentIn Sapahar, Naogaon, national youth award-winning agri-entrepreneur Sohel Rana has planted a dense forest of native trees at his Barind Agro Park using Japanese botanist Akira Miyawaki's method, the first in the north's 16 districts, he says.
AgrotechAfter a wait of five years and two months, the Bangladesh Patent Office has granted a patent for nano urea developed by Professor Md Javed Hossain Khan of Jashore University of Science and Technology; he says the sprayed fertiliser costs Tk 230 a bigha against about Tk 4,200 for conventional urea.
EnvironmentUnder a Department of Environment project on plastics and marine litter, Radhanagar in Sreemangal held an awareness meeting and clean-up, and the resort owners' association received a plastic crusher machine.
HealthFolic acid and good nutrition from three months before conception, plus fortified flour, can prevent most birth defects of the brain and spine, writes Dr Sudipta Kumar Mukherjee of the National Institute of Neurosciences.
GalleryBangladesh on 25 October through Prothom Alo's photographers: vegetables brought to market by boat in Bandarban, coriander sown in Rangpur, okra on a fish-gher bank in Khulna and date sap boiled into jaggery in Rajshahi.
EnvironmentListed as critically endangered on the 2024 Red List of the Bangladesh National Herbarium and IUCN, the chalmugra tree now survives at only ten natural sites, with fewer than five trees at each on average.
Two UK farm advisers say a lack of confidence, limited training and doubts about the benefits keep many farmers from using artificial intelligence, and suggest starting with one dull task.
CropsAs harvest winds down, DTN's View From the Cab farmers in Maryland and Minnesota say nature supplied much of their nitrogen this year, extra fertiliser paid little, and a drone-seeded cover crop failed in the dry.
EnvironmentThe Chattogram district administration will plant 100,000 saplings across 16 upazilas on 27 October, keeping 10,000 to 20,000 spares to replace any that fail, with coconut palms along the coast.
HealthA two-month campaign promotes front-of-pack warnings on packaged food high in sugar, salt and saturated fat; the Bangladesh Food Safety Authority says it is drafting regulations on such labels.
AgribusinessTwo days after it resumed urea production on Friday, the Jamuna fertiliser factory in Jamalpur halted again at 5 am on Sunday when Petrobangla and Titas cut its gas; it produced 1,600 tonnes in those two days.
IslamMost jurists hold that concluding a marriage in a mosque is mustahab because it makes the marriage public, but not every marriage in the Prophet's time took place in a mosque, so it is not obligatory.
IslamA fatwa in the Dhaka monthly Al-Kawsar says chicken and duck dipped briefly in hot water to loosen the feathers, as markets do, is neither haram nor makruh; meat soaked long enough for impurity to enter is a different matter.
CropsAn IRRI project coordinator says rice bred for a low glycaemic index, more protein and more micronutrients, such as the Indian variety DRR Dhan 81, is finding a market with food processors.
AgrotechKinetic Process Technology India has installed an AI system that runs a rice mill to output specifications set by the operator, around the clock, after earlier use in China.
EnvironmentAmsterdam this year became the first capital to ban billboards for meat and fossil fuels; a climate psychologist says advertising shapes what feels normal, but a ban works best alongside other measures.
AgribusinessIndia has not yet set nutrient-based subsidy rates for the rabi season as peak DAP demand nears, and fertiliser industry sources say the half-yearly decisions and a sulphur shortage are keeping prices high and plants below capacity.
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
GalleryGlimpse, 25 October: vegetables by boat, okra on a gher bank, date palm jaggery1 photos
GalleryGlimpse, 24 October: gourd flowers on a homestead trellis, a char sunset, cattle in Rangpur1 photos
GalleryIn pictures: the hog plum season at the boat markets of Jhalokati and Pirojpur1 photos
GalleryGlimpse, 23 October: jhum crops at a hill market, brinjal for Dhaka, cauliflower at Tk 801 photos
GalleryBangladesh in pictures, 21 October: Aman harvest, idle trawlers and railway creeper1 photos
GalleryColours of the Rangamati hills: sunbirds, orioles, a barbet and a leafbird1 photos
GalleryBangladesh in pictures, 22 October: beans for market, water lilies and a sunbirdSection
EnvironmentYears of dumping beside the Dhaka-Barishal highway near Nilkhola bridge have brought stench, flies and smoke from burning waste; the municipal administrator says land for a new dumping station has been chosen at Nalchira.
FisheriesGher digging in at least 20 beels of Lohagara has blocked drainage and left thousands of acres under water for five to six months; the fisheries office says 10,000 to 12,000 hectares of triple-crop land now grow only two crops.
AgrotechThe Conservation Technology Information Center is building a free online viewer that pools satellite-based estimates of cover crops and conservation tillage from five data providers, to be unveiled on 19 November.
