A festival marking the end of the harvest was held with farmers on the edge of a Sunamganj haor on Tuesday afternoon (13 May), at Shanir Haor in Tahirpur upazila. Farmers and people from many walks of life took part.

Sunamganj Deputy Commissioner Mohammad Ilias Mia was chief guest. A special prayer (munajat) was offered in thanks to the Creator, and everyone was served sweets.

The festival was chaired by Tahirpur upazila nirbahi officer Abul Hashem. Special guests were Sunamganj additional deputy commissioner (general) Samar Kumar Paul, Mohammad Omar Faruk of the district Department of Agricultural Extension, and Md Mamun Hawlader, executive engineer of the Sunamganj Water Development Board.

In his speech, the deputy commissioner said that because the Creator was kind and helpful, 100 per cent of the paddy in Sunamganj's haors has been brought home this time. Everyone's effort was mainly to ensure farmers' crops came to no harm in any way, and farmers are now very happy to have stored their harvest without trouble.

According to the agriculture department, 10 lakh farmers in the district grew boro rice on 223,500 hectares in Sunamganj's 137 haors this season, producing 1,396,800 tonnes of boro paddy with a market value of Tk 5,000 crore.

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