Severe cold and dense fog have caused the flowers of bean plants grown in Mirsarai, Chattogram, to fall, and farmers fear a crop failure. In other years the beans reach the market by this time, but because the flowers have dropped the crop has still not come in. If it fails, farmers could face losses.

According to the upazila agriculture office, beans have been grown on about 650 hectares this season across the upazila's two municipalities and 16 unions. Within Chattogram, Mirsarai is famous for beans second only to Sitakunda upazila, and it supplies beans across the country. Because the crop costs little and pays well, more farmers are taking it up. Most beans are grown in the fields of Khoiyachhara and Wahedpur unions.

Farmers are growing beans even on land that lies fallow all year and is otherwise unfit for cropping. On land that holds 1-2 feet of water in the monsoon, they dig soil from the side to build mounds in rows and grow beans on them. The rows are four and a half to six feet from the mounds, and each mound has its own stake. Besides farmland, large amounts of beans have been grown on hills, along both sides of village roads, on field ridges, pond banks, homesteads and both sides of the Dhaka-Chattogram highway.

Abu Jafar, a farmer from Nijtaluk village in Khoiyachhara union, said: "This year I grew beans on about 60 decimals of land. I have worked very hard since planting. The flowers came well, but the fog has made them fall. The beans are not setting properly. If this goes on, I will have to take a loss. Every year at this time I used to sell a lot of beans at the market."

Abdur Rahim, a farmer from Raghabpur village in Durgapur union, said: "It is not only beans; dense fog is damaging every crop. This year I grew beans on 35 decimals. I have not yet been able to take a single kilogram to the market. The flowers are falling and rotting because of fog and fungus. Maybe there will be some yield once the fog stops."

Nurul Hasan, who had come to shop in Mirsarai municipal town, said: "This is the peak of the bean season. Every year at this time beans cost under Tk 30. But this time beans are selling at more than Tk 60 a kg."

Mirsarai upazila agriculture officer Pratap Chandra Roy said: "The Mirsarai area is fertile for bean farming. This year beans have been grown on 650 hectares. But the excessive dense fog is making the bean flowers fall. Not just beans, nearly every kind of crop is yielding somewhat less because of the fog. Still, we keep advising farmers regularly to solve the problem."

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