The agricultural economy of the northern region has turned to vegetable cultivation

The economy of the northern region including Rangpur has turned around in vegetable farming. He added more than 12 thousand crores to the economy by growing vegetables. Yet farmers are deprived of fair price. In the current season, no vegetable except papaya is available below Tk 50 to 80 per kg. However, the marginal farmers are forced to sell vegetables at a lower price than the market in Adar and wholesale markets.

As the weather is favorable this time, the well-to-do farmers, small, barga and marginal farmers of the region have planted vegetables in Kharip-1, Kharip-2 and Rabi seasons on over 1 lakh 80 thousand hectares of land. Marginal and barga farmers face the most crisis while cultivating these crops. They took loans and cultivated vegetables and sold those vegetables again to repay the loans. Therefore, when the price of vegetables in the market falls, they are the most affected.

It is known that after talking to several farmers including Sabuj Miah, Abadur Rahman, Kaunia farmer Azizar Rahman, Pirgacha Tambulpur Hafizul Islam, the well-to-do farmers of Mithapukur Upazila have brought prosperity to their families as a result of vegetable cultivation. They are all self-sufficient now. Now they don’t have to go to market to sell vegetables. Traders buy vegetables from the house yard. The price of vegetables is good in the retail market. They are forced to sell to wholesalers and wholesalers at wholesale prices rather than market prices. Because there is no opportunity to preserve vegetables. According to the information available to them, small and marginal farmers are at risk in vegetable cultivation. They grow these vegetables by borrowing on interest. So they cannot repay the loan if the market price falls. The traders buy these vegetables at wholesale rates from different districts of the north and supply them to different places including Dhaka, Chittagong, Khulna, Sylhet. Apart from this, during Kharip-1 season, dhyandash, potal, chichinga, puishak, eggplant, sweet pumpkin, water pumpkin, rice pumpkin etc. Farmers are getting good profit by cultivating radish, brinjal, cauliflower, cabbage, red vegetables, spinach, pui vegetables and other vegetables in rabi season.

If you stand next to the highways of Rangpur region including Jaigirhat, Mithapukur, Shathibari, Pirganj, you can see that there are trucks standing next to different bazaars for buying vegetables. From night to dawn, these trucks are moving to other parts of the country with vegetables. Farmers said that by cultivating gourd on 1 acre of land, they have made a profit of about lakhs of rupees after deducting the expenses.

According to the sources of Agriculture Extension Department, in 16 districts of northern region, about 3.6 million tons of bitter gourd, cauliflower, cabbage, red cabbage, radish, radish, tomato, pumpkin and other vegetables from 1 lakh 80 thousand hectares of land have reached the homes of farmers during rabi and kharif seasons. Average production is 20 tons per hectare. At the farmer level, the minimum price of vegetables per kg is Tk 35 per kg, but each ton is sold at Tk 35,000. Accordingly, the value of 3.6 million tons of vegetables in two seasons has reached over 12 thousand crore rupees.

Obaidur Rahman Mondal, Deputy Director of Rangpur Agricultural Extension Department, said that the average production per hectare of different types of vegetables is 20.7 tons. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has given instructions that no land can be left behind. Therefore, vegetables have been cultivated on the fallow land. The vegetable farmers of northern region have got this good price as the government has taken various initiatives for the vegetable farmers. Apart from this, it has played an important role in the vegetable cultivation of the nutrition garden program of the government.