Early winter vegetable farming

Farmers in the district are busy cultivating early winter vegetables for getting lucrative profit as the earlier they can market their produce the more profit they can earn.

District Department of Agriculture Extension (DAE) Sub-Assistant Agriculture Officer Sanarul Islam said they have set a target to cultivate winter vegetables on 5,500 hectares of land this year, which is 350 hectares higher than last year, as the area is regarded as one of the best vegetable producing areas in the region.

The most popular early winter vegetables are cauliflower, cabbage, tomato, bean, radish, brinjal, ladies finger and also different kinds of leafy vegetables, he added.

Visiting vegetable producing villages like Bhashani para and Subarnakhuli in Sadar upazila, and Uttar Sonakhuli in Saidpur upazila, this correspondent found many farmers weeding cauliflower or cabbage fields, some planting tomatoes and some taking care of seedbeds.

“Cultivating winter vegetables early is challenging as it is cultivated from mid-August instead of usual cultivating time in November. For this, farmers have to protect their tender vegetable plants from heavy rainfall by covering them with polythene sheets and spraying additional pesticide to combat paste attack,” said Sadar Upazila Agriculture Officer Md Mazedul Islam.

“I cultivated 8,000 saplings of cauliflower this year on two bighas of land in mid-August with expenditure of around Tk 30,000 and expect to get Tk 1.20 lakh by selling each sapling for Tk 15 on average in mid-October. I cultivated it last year and got as much profit,” said Neza Mahmud of Uttar Sonakhuli village.

“I cultivated bean early on one bigha of land and hope to sell the vegetable for around Tk 80,000 in October and November, while the expenditure was about Tk 30,000,” said Rashidul Islam, 28, of Dhelapir village under Sadar upazila.

 “I cultivated leafy vegetable red amaranth on one bigha of land and have a plan to cultivate this variety three times consecutively on the same land in the same season as it takes only one month to be ready for selling, giving me a total earning of Tk 60,000,” said Nazrul Islam, 60, of Bhasani para village in the upazila.

“Farmers now prefer to cultivate early vegetables as they are more profitable than paddy, bringing net profit of Tk 40,000 to Tk 50,000 per bigha on average, while 20 maunds of Boro paddy produced in same area offers only Tk 5,000 profit (one maund of paddy is sold at Tk 700) after deducting production cost of Tk 9,000 from Tk 14,000 earned from selling the crop,” said farmers Baten Sheikh, Dhoroni Roy and others of Dimla upazila.

“We encourage farmers to go for crop diversification without depending merely on paddy cultivation. Responding to our call, farmers are inclining towards early winter vegetable cultivation as it brings higher profit to them,” said District DAE Deputy Director Abul Kashem Azad.