Farmers in more than a hundred nurseries in Brahmanbaria Sadar upazila are becoming self-reliant and profitable by producing grafted seedlings of summer tomato. Where they once bought seedlings from neighbouring districts, growers now raise their own. The local agriculture department expects the enterprise to cut import dependence, raise production and give farmers an alternative livelihood.

High summer temperatures and heavy rain once made tomato seedlings hard to raise; grafting now allows large-scale commercial production through the summer. Seedlings of improved tomato varieties are grafted onto the rootstock of wild or bitter brinjal — the roadside wild brinjal — which tolerates the conditions. More than 600 men and women in Natai Uttar, Ramrail and Machhihata unions of Sadar upazila earn their living producing grafted and seed-grown seedlings.

Agricultural entrepreneur Badal Mia said rain dominates from June to October, when loose, non-grafted tomato cannot be grown and tomato has to be imported to meet local demand; producing grafted seedlings was the route the nurseries chose to reduce that dependence.

Agriculturist Shahana Begum, the Sadar upazila agriculture officer, told BSS the upazila produces about 500,000 grafted seedlings worth roughly Tk 75 lakh, and that seedling trade across the nurseries totals about Tk 1.2 crore a year. Farmers are being given every kind of support for seedling production, she said.

Based on BSS's Brahmanbaria report. Source: BSS