The Department of Agriculture Extension has fixed a target of producing 86.50 lakh tonnes of winter vegetables in 4.40 lakh hectares land during this Rabi season throughout the country, official sources said on Monday. At the same time, special steps have been taken to make the programme successful through providing necessary assistance to the farmers as they have been showing more interests in farming winter vegetables after achieving repeated success in recent years.
Under the programme, the DAE has fixed a target of producing a record quantity of 60.65 lakh tonnes of different variety of winter vegetables from over 3.08 lakh hectares land in the northern region during the current Rabi season, the sources said.
Meanwhile, the early variety of winter vegetables have already appeared in the local markets bringing smiles to the farmers with lucrative prices in the beginning of the season, officials, farmers and market sources said.
DAE horticulture specialist Khandker M Mesbahul Islam on Monday told the news agency that the farmers have started cultivation of winter vegetables after harvesting early and short duration variety Aman paddies like BRRI dhan 33, 56
and 57, BU dhan 1, BINA dhan 7 and others side by side continuing harvests of early variety vegetables.
Meanwhile, the vegetables traders and middlemen have already started supply some of early variety
winter vegetables to Dhaka and other parts of the country by trucks from different points in the region.
Officials said the DAE, Bangladesh Agriculture Research Institute, Bangladesh Agriculture Development Corporation and NGOs have started supplying adequate quality seeds, agro-inputs and providing necessary technical assistance to the farmers.
-With New Age input