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SYLHET, Feb 11: Winter vegetables of different kinds were cultivated on 102,544 hectares of land in Sylhet division during the current season.
The vegetables include gourd, sweet gourd, radish, bean, tomato, cucumber, red spinach, pumpkin, cauliflower, cabbage, egg plant, taro, onion, garlic, etc.
An DAE official informed yesterday that most of the farmers were busy on their croplands for farming these vegetables, which have an increasing demand in all over the four districts in recent years. As the season is about to end, the produce is on the market.
Of the total area, highest 59,004 hectares are of vegetables.
Besides, potato has so far been cultivated on 7,231 hectares in the division while sweet potato on 1,402 hectares, wheat on 1,344 hectares, maize on 695 hectares, mustard on 7,016 hectares, coriander - not leaf - on 3156 hectares, chili on 3,566 hectares, mashkalai on 1,315 hectares, french bean on 4,920 hectares named Mosur on 243 hectares.
In addition to these, onion has been cultivated on 652 hectares, garlic on 323 hectares and watermelon.
The DAE officials said a good number of farmers got involved in the vegetables farming on barren land on new areas of different upazilas like Balaganj, Osmaninagar, Golapganj, Biswanath, Gowainghat, Jaintapur, Beanibazar and Kanaighat. They said vegetable crops are also produced on bulk areas in these upazilas.
The farmers in many areas had also been involved at largescale with the vegetable farming on commercial basis, he added.
However, often oversupply of the vegetables compel the farmers sell their produce at lower price, causing much to them. For the last one week the prices of most of the vegetable items had gone down even on the retail markets. The farmers, who manage early farming to get benefit always, said an official.
Additional Director of the DAE, Sylhet Md. Altabur Rahman said commercial farming of vegetable of all kinds had been rising day by day whereas most of the people of this region had almost no interest in vegetable farming few years ago.
In addition to the different ongoing projects of the DAE, the special project 'Raising crop intensity in Sylhet division' has been contributing well in motivating and engaging farmers with modern methods of agriculture and high-value crops in the region, the official said adding, it is set to end this fiscal.