Farmer Shafiqul Islam has profited from growing nutritious colourful cauliflowers. Growing purple and yellow cauliflowers for the first time, he got a bumper crop, and seeing his success, more farmers hope to grow them in future.

Shafiqul, of Naodapara village in Dashuria union, collected colourful cauliflower seed from a private development organisation and planted it on 10 decimals of land, the report says. Purple and yellow cauliflowers are grown the same way, and at the same cost, as white ones.

Al-Amin of Naodapara, who came to Shafiqul's field to buy, said: "It's nice to see colourful cauliflower for the first time. I've heard it is tasty and nutritious, so I came to buy some."

Farmer Altab Hossain of the same area said: "People come every day to see Shafiqul's colourful cauliflowers. They sell at a higher price than white cauliflower. We will grow them too in future. We have learned how to get the seed and grow them."

Shafiqul Islam said: "I grow white cauliflower every year, but this time I grew purple and yellow ones on 10 kathas of land. As a member of an NGO, I got 10 grams of colourful cauliflower seed from it for Tk 5,000. They gave me an idea of how to grow and care for it. At first I thought I might lose money growing an unfamiliar variety. Now I see the profit is more than I hoped for. I will grow it on more land in future."

Ishwardi upazila agriculture officer Mita Sarkar said: "Cauliflower has been grown on 950 hectares in the upazila. Very little of it is colourful cauliflower. The agriculture office has helped cauliflower growers with advice. Farmers have a chance of greater profit from colourful cauliflower."

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