Vegetables are being grown in Rajbari without harmful pesticides or chemicals and are crossing the country's borders to London and America. The export crops include bitter gourd, bottle gourd, local chillies and okra, among others.

Rajbari's agricultural extension office organised a view-exchange meeting and formal inauguration with farmers contracted to Bangladesh Globepack Food and Beverage Limited and farmers of a project to produce safe crops through eco-friendly methods.

On Wednesday (20 October) afternoon the visitors inspected fields in East Mulghar of Mulghar union in Rajbari Sadar upazila, picking the vegetables with their own hands and touring the plots.

Landowners Abdul Majid, Rezaul and Lutfar — three farmers — have taken up growing various pesticide-free vegetables on about 300 acres. With the help of Rajbari's agricultural extension office, they are producing vegetables on pesticide-free land using the pilot plot method. The produce is first harvested and taken to Dhaka, then processed and packaged for export to London, America and various countries in Europe. This is the first time pesticide-free vegetables have been grown in Rajbari, and the farmers are becoming self-reliant and happy.

Md Imdadul Sheikh of Sultanpur union in Sadar upazila said: "On the advice of the district agriculture officer I tried growing pesticide-free vegetables on 110 decimals of land. With the agriculture office's help I started growing bottle gourd. Now there are hundreds of gourds on every row, ready for sale, and the pesticide-free gourds will soon be exported. Within 45 days each gourd will weigh 5 to 6 kg. When they are sold, we will have a little reason to smile."

A short discussion meeting was held in the bottle gourd field. Md Asadullah, director general of the Department of Agricultural Extension (DAE) at Khamarbari, Dhaka, was the chief guest. Special guests included Manojit Kumar Mallick, additional director of the DAE's Faridpur region; Shah Md Aminul Haque, chairman of Globepack Food and Beverage Ltd; SM Sahid-Nur-Akbar, deputy director of the district DAE; Sadar upazila agriculture officer Md Bahauddin Sheikh; and upazila agricultural extension officer Md Tofazzel Hossain.

Source: Amader Shomoy. First published in Bengali on The Agro News.