Drawn by high market prices, farmers in Chaugachha, Jashore, have turned to growing mete alu. With the weather favourable, they expect a bumper harvest this year. Mete alu is a plant with long vines and leaves like betel leaves; after sowing, the tuber grows on its own under the ground.

Once, mete alu was sown only here and there, in a corner of the homestead or on fallow land. Farmers gave what they harvested to their own households and relatives and sold the rest. Because the market price has been good, over the past few years growers have started planting it field after field.

According to the upazila agriculture office, farmers have grown local varieties of mete alu on 85 hectares this year. Farmers in villages including Jagadishpur, Mirzapur, Kandi, Swarparajpur, Purahuda, Marua, Saidpur, Kotalipur, Charabari, Raynagar, Tentulbaria, Muktadaha, Teghari, Patibila, Debipur, Hazrakhana, Tengurpur and Petbhara grow it regularly.

On Friday, 1 October, in the fields of Jagadishpur village, mete alu vines trained onto trellises were seen winding from one trellis to the next. Among fields green with other crops, the betel-like leaves of mete alu added a beauty of their own. On most plots, farmers were busy tending the plants.

Farmers Shahadat Ali, Helauddin, Jamir Hossain and Yusuf Ali said the seed tubers are sown in the month of Baishakh and grow under the soil for about six months. One plant yields from 3 kg to 10 kg of tubers. When the market is good, they sell for Tk 45 to 60 a kg.

The farmers said several local varieties are grown, including Garal Lata, Machhranga, Munshi and Dutsar. Of these, Machhranga is the tastiest, so it fetches a somewhat higher price than the others. Growing mete alu needs no fertiliser or pesticide. It is sown in the same land before the aubergine, bitter gourd or pointed gourd crop is finished, and the fertiliser already applied to that land is enough to raise it. As a result, costs are very low, the farmers said.

Upazila Agriculture Officer Samaren Biswas, an agriculturist, said farmers in the area have brought radical change to farming and are profiting by growing new crops. The upazila agriculture office is giving farmers all-round support, he said.

Source: Amader Shomoy. First published in Bengali on The Agro News.