Farmers across northern Bangladesh are busy with early winter vegetables, hoping for good yields and fair prices after last year's losses. Radish, cauliflower, cabbage, beans, bottle gourd, tomato, red amaranth and other winter crops have been planted across the region, and beans and cabbage are already reaching the markets. If all goes well, growers and agriculture officials expect a bumper crop and better returns.

According to the Department of Agricultural Extension in Rangpur, the eight northern districts — Rangpur, Dinajpur, Kurigram, Lalmonirhat, Nilphamari, Gaibandha, Thakurgaon and Panchagarh — have a target of 33,900 hectares of early winter vegetables this season, with a production target of 314,000 tonnes. The region, and Rangpur in particular, is known as the country's vegetable store; growers plant early varieties before the cold sets in, and many are still transplanting new seedlings for commercial cultivation.

Zahidul Islam, a farmer at Ranipukur in Mithapukur upazila, grows early winter vegetables every year; this season his cabbage and coriander have done better than last year, and he has already sold cabbage at Tk 2,000 a maund and about Tk 10,000 worth of coriander, a good price against his costs. Another grower, Aynal Mia, said unfavourable weather made the early crop harder this year; he has planted cabbage, beans, radish, red amaranth and coriander, but heavy rain ruined many farmers' plots and they have started again.

The department says farmers have been trained in improved vegetable-growing technology and that regular field supervision has increased the use of modern methods, which should raise both output and profit. Md Sirajul Islam, additional director of the department's Rangpur division, said farmers were trained on expanding early winter vegetables and are receiving technical advice and every kind of support in the field.

Based on a UNB report. Source: UNB