Moulvibazar, known for its greenery, has seen a quiet revolution in farming. Over the past five years about 5,000 hectares of fallow land in the district have been brought under cultivation. Thanks to modern machinery and farmers' willingness, seasonal fruit and vegetable gardens now cover the plains and the hills alike.

Thousands of hectares used to lie fallow because of labour shortages and a lack of modern technology, and ploughing with bullocks could not cover all the land. Mechanisation has changed that. Owners of fallow land now farm it themselves, lease it out or let it on sharecropping terms, and on average about 1,000 hectares of fallow land come under cultivation each year. Single-crop land has also been converted to double or triple cropping.

According to the district DAE office, cultivated land rose from 123,720 hectares in 2020 to about 128,000 hectares now. In Kulaura, Kamalganj, Rajnagar, Sreemangal and elsewhere, land that was jungle or abandoned five years ago now carries mango, pineapple, lemon, malta, guava, jackfruit, jujube, papaya and aubergine. The value of such land has risen many times.

Farmers Joynal Mia, Helal Ahmed and Rukon Uddin said low-lying land near homes used to lie unused, but machinery now makes it easy to farm, and although costs have risen, produce sells well all year, so many people are taking up farming as a profession.

Agri-entrepreneur Azadur Rahman leased about 6 acres of former jungle and set up Eagle Nursery and Flower Garden, followed by jujube, bottle gourd, papaya and other crops. He earns about Tk 8 lakh to Tk 10 lakh a year after costs, and the site is now known locally as the "jujube garden". Raju Ahmed of Kamalganj used to grow tomato, cauliflower, cabbage and bottle gourd only in winter but now grows them all year, harvesting three crops where there used to be one.

Md. Jalal Uddin, deputy director of DAE Moulvibazar, said about 700 to 800 hectares of fallow land come under cultivation every year, mostly for pineapple, malta and lemon orchards as well as bottle gourd, papaya and banana. Even where the land is not double or triple cropped, it counts as farmland, he said, and each part of the district is known for particular fruits or vegetables, with tomatoes, cauliflower, cabbage, papaya, pineapple and jackfruit sent across the country.

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