Sunflowers stand with their heads raised in the golden sun, and their bloom is lifting farmers' spirits. With low production costs, a quick harvest and higher profits, Bagerhat's farmers are turning to sunflower cultivation more and more each day. Visitors are also crowding the fields to see the sea of yellow flowers. In Shyanpukuria village of the district's Kachua upazila, sunflower has been grown over a wide area.

According to the agriculture office, 3,800 farmers are growing sunflower on 610 hectares in Bagerhat district this year. Because the crop is salt-tolerant, sunflower has yielded well in Bagerhat's soil. To encourage farmers, the agriculture department is providing free seed, fertiliser and advice.

Farmers said sunflower seed is sown in December and the crop is cut in late April, only four months later. The yield is better than last year. Growing sunflower costs Tk 8,000 to 9,000 per bigha, and it is possible to earn Tk 20,000 to 25,000 per bigha. The oil is nutritious and tasty, and sells for Tk 400 a kg.

Local farmer Mohammad Sohag said: "Sunflower has yielded better than paddy, maize and mustard, and it costs less. I work on other crops in the fields. Because sunflower needs less labour, the women of the household can do all the work. My wife does most of the work on this sunflower crop."

Chhobi Mridha, a woman farmer, said: "We have been growing sunflower for three years. It yields well and we have made a good profit from it. This oil is very nutritious, so we use it ourselves all year round, and we also sell it at Tk 400 a kg. There is a lot of demand for this oil. People buy it straight from our house."

Farmer Rabindranath Mridha said: "Sunflower costs much less to grow than paddy, so our income is higher. This crop also needs relatively little irrigation and care. From sunflower we get oil cake as well as oil, and we can feed the cake to our cows. We are benefiting a lot from eating this oil. We don't have to buy adulterated oil from outside. After meeting our own needs we can sell oil outside too."

Md Motahar Hossain, deputy director of the Department of Agricultural Extension (DAE) in Bagerhat, said: "Because sunflower is salt-tolerant, it has yielded well in Bagerhat. Through courtyard meetings we have been able to explain the benefits of sunflower cultivation to farmers. We are encouraging farmers with seed and fertiliser, and we are giving the necessary advice from sowing to harvest."

He said: "If sunflower can be grown on Bagerhat's fallow land, dependence on imported oil will fall considerably. With that in mind, seed of the BARI Sunflower-3 variety will be given to all farmers in future. By providing seed and fertiliser, we will encourage them to grow it on fallow land, on the embankments of shrimp enclosures and around homesteads. This is how we will expand sunflower cultivation."

Source: Jagonews24. First published in Bengali on The Agro News.