Vegetables line both sides of the road. There are rows of native fruit trees and trellises of greens and vegetables, the trellises full of green vines, flowers and fruit. These vegetables and native fruits are meeting farmers' nutritional needs, and by selling the produce in the market the farmers are also earning extra income.

According to the upazila agriculture office, the agriculture department is working to encourage farmers to bring land under cultivation rather than leave it fallow. Agriculture officials are advising farmers to grow vegetables and native fruit along both sides of roads, around homesteads and on field ridges. Vegetable growing has begun along several village roads and on field ridges in the upazila, and farmers are also being encouraged to grow native vegetables and fruit along roads and highways. Native banana and papaya trees have already been planted in some places.

In the Ista area of the municipal town, farmers have built trellises along both sides of the road to grow bottle gourd and beans. They have planted banana and papaya trees and set brinjal and okra on the field ridges. Beans, bottle gourd, ridge gourd, sweet pumpkin, cucumber and drumstick can also be seen along the roads in villages across the upazila, including Marmi, Sultanpur, Boktarpur, Muladuli, Mirkamari, Kamalpur and Arpara.

Rezaul Karim, a farmer in the Ista area, said: "Beside the road there is an irrigation channel from a deep tube well. We have grown bottle gourd and beans on trellises over the channel, and planted brinjal and chilli seedlings on its ridges. The vegetables grown here meet the family's needs and are sold to people nearby."

Farmer Alimuzzaman Channa said: "I have grown beans, bottle gourd, brinjal, chilli and other vegetables along both sides of the road and on the ridges. We have started cultivating this abandoned land ourselves so that no land, including roadsides and ridges, lies fallow. I am advising others to grow crops too."

Abdur Rashid, a farmer in Barohasia village of Dashuria, has grown beans beside the road. He said he has profited from growing beans on a trellis by the roadside. After meeting his family's needs he earned money selling the beans in the market, so he grows vegetables by the road every year.

Sub-assistant agriculture officer Sujan Kumar Roy told Jago News: "Village farmers have grown bottle gourd, beans and yard-long beans on trellises over irrigation channels, and papaya, drumstick, brinjal, chilli and tomato along both sides of the road. If farmers want, not an inch of land will lie fallow. The vegetables along both sides of the road in Ista can be an example. The agriculture office is giving them all kinds of advice on cultivation and also helping with vegetable seedlings."

Ishwardi upazila agriculture officer Mita Sarkar told Jago News: "In line with the Honourable Prime Minister's directive that not an inch of land should be left uncultivated, we are giving farmers various advice on planting vegetables and fruit trees along both sides of roads. Vegetables and native fruit are already being grown along several roads."

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