Growing pui shak (Malabar spinach) has changed the fortunes of Sufia Begum, a housewife in her thirties. For the past 10 years she has been growing it in Chupair village of Jamalpur union in Kaliganj upazila, Gazipur. Farmers in and around the village are taking an interest after seeing her, and many come from far away to see her crop and seek her advice.

Sufia Begum said hers is a family of four that depends entirely on farming. Her husband ploughs their own land with a tractor and then earns by ploughing other people's land for hire. She took up pui shak to help her husband, and after several profitable years she began growing it on a larger scale.

She said: "I have about 40 decimals of land, and I have been growing pui shak there for 10 years. If I spend Tk 50,000 and there is no natural disaster, I can earn Tk 1 to 1.5 lakh."

Monjur Hossain, a farmer in his forties from Chupair, said: "Sufia Begum grows pui shak every year, and this year too her field looks very good. She has profited a lot from it. I want to grow pui shak next year."

Another farmer, Md Iman Ali Morol, said: "Sufia Begum works very hard at growing pui shak, and she earns well from it every year. She inspires me. In future I will grow pui shak on half a bigha."

Aktaruzzaman, sub-assistant plant protection officer in Kaliganj, said: "Farmers in the upazila have mastered pui shak cultivation on a wide scale. So they are meeting local demand and supplying Dhaka and other parts of the country. Every day trucks and pickups loaded with it leave the local Dolan Bazar area for different places."

Kaliganj upazila agriculture officer, agriculturist Farzana Taslim, said: "A healthy person needs 200 grams of vegetables a day, 100 grams of leafy greens and 100 grams of other vegetables. Pui shak is a popular leafy green. Vegetables are grown in every union of the upazila, and in some villages of Jamalpur union rather more pui shak is grown."

She said: "Because pui is a leafy vegetable, we get more nutrition from it. Farmers can grow it very easily, either spread on the ground or on a trellis. But diseases do occur, especially leaf spot. The agriculture office gives advice on this."

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