Sweet pumpkin has yielded a bumper crop on the vast fallow land in the bed of the Padma in Faridpur. Where growing crops was impossible only a few years ago, char farmers have made the fallow land usable and are now growing crops on it. For several years they have been successfully growing pumpkin in the sandy soil.

Enquiries found that sweet pumpkin worth at least Tk 50 crore has been produced this year in the district's nine upazilas. Traders are coming from different parts of the country to buy pumpkins from the fields, and sweet pumpkin is also being sold at nearby markets. Farmers are happy with the bumper yield and good prices this year. Sweet pumpkin is selling at wholesale rates of Tk 15 to 20 a kg in the fields.

Farmer Hasan Sheikh said growing sweet pumpkin cost about Tk 15,000 per bigha, and the crop is selling for Tk 50,000 to 60,000. "We sell by the vehicle load. Some sell by the maund, and some sell the whole field. It takes Tk 1,500 worth of pumpkin seed and a little fertiliser. The yield and sales are good."

Pumpkin trader Md Alamgir Hossain said there had been a bumper crop on the chars this time. "We have come from Madhukhali to buy. We buy pumpkins straight from the fields and sell them by truck in different districts at a modest profit. We are buying sweet pumpkin at Tk 700 to 800 a maund."

Krishibid Md Rafiqul Islam, deputy director of the Department of Agricultural Extension (DAE) in Faridpur, told Jagonews24 that pumpkin had been grown on 850 hectares in Faridpur this year. Farmers expect pumpkin worth more than Tk 50 crore to be marketed in the district this year, he said.

He said char farmers have made uncultivated land fit for farming over the past few years, and farmers in the region are also benefiting because the Padma Bridge has made transport easier.

Faridpur deputy commissioner (DC) Kamrul Ahsan Talukder told Jagonews24 that sweet pumpkin is a vegetable of immense potential in Faridpur. Including the fallow char land, pumpkin worth more than Tk 50 crore could be marketed across the district this year, he said.

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