Mini Dal Mills Boost Interest in Mungbean on the Coast

Global warming and rising sea levels are increasing soil salinity on the coast and reducing farmland productivity. To cope, farmers have turned to mungbean, and its area on single-crop land grows every year. Mungbean is now a promising new crop in the south.

With support from the Australian government's ACIAR project on developing salt-tolerant wheat and pulse varieties and technologies to crop fallow coastal land in the dry season, mini-mills for splitting mungbean have been supplied jointly with the Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute (BARI) and the Bangladesh wheat research institute. Since 2021, 21 mini-mills have been installed in various places in Patuakhali and Barguna.

Mungbean is not only nutritious; its roots increase soil fertility, and ploughing the plants into the land also raises fertility, which agricultural scientists say helps somewhat in reducing salinity.

Source: Shykh Seraj, Hridoye Mati O Manush. First published in Bengali on The Agro News.