In Chhengbil village of Salukabad union, Bishwambharpur upazila, Sunamganj, the fields are lined with bean trellises, purple flowers showing through the dense leaves. Beans and other vegetables are doing well, but the growers are worried: they say they have received no incentive for vegetables this year, and market prices have fallen sharply.
Chhengbil farmer Md Jahangir Mia has grown Kiranmala, a red bean, on three kiyar (one kiyar is 30 decimals). Since the month of Srabon, seed, ploughing, pesticide and fertiliser have cost him about Tk 1 lakh. Kiranmala beans now sell at Tk 30 a kilo, or Tk 1,200 a maund; white beans at Tk 60, aubergine at Tk 27-28 and cucumber at Tk 30 a kilo. He is not sure he will recover his costs.
According to the district Department of Agricultural Extension, Bishwambharpur grows the most vegetables in Sunamganj, followed by Sadar, Tahirpur and Jamalganj. Last year 7,600 vegetable farmers in the district received fertiliser, seed and incentive support. This year nothing has been given so far, and none is likely soon.
The district's vegetable target for this rabi season is 12,771 hectares, of which 6,490 hectares have been planted so far. Last year vegetables covered 12,619 hectares.
Jahangir Alam of Chanpur in Jamalganj says more than 500 families in 10 to 12 villages, including Sonapur, Chanpur, Mannanghat and Seliganj, grow vegetables. He has planted 13-14 kiyar and spent more than Tk 2 lakh so far, and complains that he gets neither government support nor field advice from the agriculture department.
Mohammad Omar Faruk, deputy director of the extension department in Sunamganj, says fertiliser and seed were given as incentives last season, but no allocation has arrived for this one. With too few staff, he adds, field-level advice to farmers is not possible in many upazilas. The report is by Ajker Patrika's Sunamganj correspondent Biswajit Roy.
Photo: Kamrul Islam Shahin / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Source: Ajker Patrika
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