Harvests of paddy, fish and vegetables are reviving the economy of Sunamganj, the haor district. This year the district produced paddy worth Tk 3,500 crore, fish worth Tk 5,500 crore and vegetables worth Tk 1,300 crore. With output exceeding targets every year, farmers in the haor are now better off.

The low-lying region is made up of 137 large and small haors across Sunamganj's 12 upazilas. It is quite unlike any other part of the country: its way of life, culture, dialect, landscape and climate are all distinct. For about six months of the year the whole haor area is under water, and for the other six it is dry, so the local economy has grown in step with nature.

About 80 per cent of the people in the roughly 3,747 square kilometres of haor depend directly on agriculture, and their living standards are built on farm and fish production. In the dry season the haors produce paddy, vegetables and all kinds of crops; in the monsoon, when the area is brimming with water, people make their living by catching and farming fish. Life here has changed around these two occupations.

Abdul Matin farms in the Karchar haor of Bishwambharpur upazila. Once, farmers had to toil from transplanting seedlings to threshing, and costs were high. Now farming has modernised: tractors and irrigation pumps are in the fields, along with transplanting, harvesting and threshing machines. Hard labour, time and costs have fallen, and yields have risen.

Farmer Matin Mia told Jago News: "We are seeing success from growing paddy. Earlier we did not make much profit from it. Now haor farmers profit a lot from paddy."

Last year Sunamganj produced 13 lakh 8 thousand tonnes of Boro paddy, which yielded 8 lakh 72 thousand 149 tonnes of rice with a market value of Tk 3,600 crore. This season the district has produced 13 lakh 60 thousand tonnes of paddy, yielding 9 lakh 27 thousand tonnes of rice worth Tk 3,800 crore.

Last year the district also produced 2 lakh 98 thousand 500 tonnes of Aman paddy, which yielded 1 lakh 99 thousand tonnes of rice worth Tk 800 crore. This season Aman output was 3 lakh 10 thousand tonnes, yielding 2 lakh 7 thousand tonnes of rice worth Tk 830 crore.

As a haor district, Sunamganj is producing more fish every year. It has about 25,173 ponds, 20 of them under the Department of Fisheries and 153 under the Ministry of Land; fish are farmed privately in the remaining 25,000. The district also has about 1,000 large and small beels producing 200 species of fish, which after meeting Sunamganj's demand are exported to more than 160 countries.

Last year the district produced 1 lakh 7 thousand 541 tonnes of fish worth Tk 5,000 crore. But the devastating flood of 16 June washed away all of Sunamganj's fish, leaving the district's 17,000 fish farmers destitute. Even so, they borrowed from moneylenders at high interest and farmed fish again this year, producing 1 lakh 9 thousand 500 tonnes worth Tk 5,500 crore.

Fish farmers say they now profit a lot from fish farming, but in years when there is a flood they suffer losses.

Fish farmer Helal Mia told Jago News: "Although we are hit by floods every year, we get no help from the government. Still, we profit a lot from fish farming. It is only in flood years that we face losses."

Sunamganj district fisheries officer Md Shamsul Karim told Jago News that, as a haor area, Sunamganj's fish output is rising year by year. "We are working to give financial support to fish farmers hit by floods and to increase fish production in the district further," he said.

After paddy and fish, vegetable production has grown widely in the northern part of the district, and the vegetables are sent to different parts of the country after meeting Sunamganj's needs.

Vegetable grower Sajib Mia has grown various vegetables on 20 acres this year, and a bumper crop has changed his life. He has already sold Tk 20 lakh worth at market. "This year's harvest was better than other years and I got very good prices," he told Jago News.

It is not only Sajib Mia: with favourable weather, growers across Sunamganj are smiling this year over a bumper crop and good prices, and the produce is being sent to other parts of the country after meeting local demand.

Last year Sunamganj produced 2 lakh 85 thousand tonnes of vegetables worth Tk 950 crore. This year it has produced 3 lakh tonnes worth Tk 1,300 crore, so vegetable production in the district is also rising steadily.

Growers say vegetable production in Sunamganj is rising every year, but more is possible if the agriculture department supports farmers in the field.

Bimal Chandra Som, deputy director of the Department of Agricultural Extension (DAE) in Sunamganj, told Jago News that paddy and vegetable production in the haor is rising day by day, farmers are profiting, and the haor economy is changing.

Deputy Commissioner Didare Alam Mohammad Maksud Chowdhury told Jago News: "We are working to boost Sunamganj's economy. As this is mainly a haor area, we are supporting farmers in the field to increase production of paddy, fish and vegetables."

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