The Palichara haat in Sadyapushkarini union of Rangpur Sadar upazila is busy again. It sits every day from first light, which is why locals call it the dawn vegetable market, and farmers arrive with baskets on their heads or vans stacked with fresh greens.
What sets it apart is that wholesalers and shoppers buy straight from the growers, without the middlemen who dominate many rural markets. Vegetables come in daily from Ranipukur, Bhelu, Palichara, Katabari, Gopalpur, Madhabpur, Fatepur, Ayodhyapur and other villages of Rangpur Sadar and Mithapukur, and go on to Rangpur town, Dhaka and other parts of the country.
The agriculture department says Rangpur district has a target of 17,900 hectares of winter vegetables this year, of which about 3,000 hectares have already been sown with early crops.
Abdur Rahim of Palichara village was selling red amaranth and sweet pumpkin. Almost everyone in his village grows vegetables, he said, picking them before dawn and bringing them straight to the haat, so the farmers decide their own prices. Jasim Uddin of Katabari, who grows tomato and cabbage on three bighas, said traders used to come to the fields, buy cheap and sell dear elsewhere; now he can watch the market and bargain.
Buyers like it too. Asaduzzaman, an office worker from the Dhap area of Rangpur town, said he can get vegetables cut that morning at normal prices, so he comes at least twice a week.
Saiful Alam, deputy director of the Department of Agricultural Extension in Rangpur, said Palichara is one of the region's biggest vegetable markets and supplies Dhaka and other areas. Because farmers can check prices themselves and buyers save money, he said, it has become a place both sides trust.
The report is by Krishi Shomoy's Rangpur correspondent.
Photo: Masum-al-hasan / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Source: Krishi Shomoy
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