RAJSHAHI, Feb 26, 2020 (BSS)- Around 3.73 lakh tonnes of garlic are
likely to be produced from around 46,718 hectares of land in all eight
districts of Rajshahi division during the current season.
Deb Dulal Dhali, Additional Director of the Department of Agricultural
Extension (DAE), said the target of producing the spicy crop has been set and
all possible measures were adopted to attain it in the region.
He said farmers here are showing interest to garlic farming as they are
getting bumper production and fair price of the cash crops using an eco-
friendly method. Now, he said, the farmers are passing very busy days in
garlic cultivation and they are expecting bumper production of garlic this
year due to favourable weather.
Nasir Uddin, a farmer of Dharmahata village under Godagari Upazila,
cultivated garlic on a 20-decimal land using the zero tillage method on trial
basis in 2017 and he got a bumper yields. He cultivated the cash crop on
three bigha of land following the year.
After spending Taka 56,000 in garlic farming, Nasir got sale-proceeds
worth Taka 1.20 lakh and he earned a profit of Taka 65,000 in 2019, which
inspired him to boost the farming to six bighas of arable land this year.
Afaz Uddin, a garlic farmer of Shilmaria village in Puthia Upazila, said
they used to cultivate garlic after digging the land in the past. But now
many farmers have started garlic cultivation without digging the land.
Farmers will be able to achieve bumper production of garlic if the weather
remains favourable.”
He said the direct-seeded garlic cultivation is gaining popularity among
farmers in Rajshahi region, including its vast Barind area, supplementing the
efforts towards reducing pressure on soil and underground water.
Abdus Sabur, another farmer of Panchandar village in Tanore upazila, said
that he incurred losses during the last few years by producing tomatoes and
other vegetables and rice. “But we get handsome returns from garlic and
onion,” he said.
Dr Shakhawat Hossain, a senior scientific officer of Bangladesh
Agriculture Research Institute (BARI), said farmers are now showing more
interest to the method of zero tillage garlic farming just after harvesting
their transplanted aman paddy.
Residual values of chemical and organic fertilizers and soil moisture of
the paddy field helps the garlic farming enormously, he said.
Dr Hossain said adoption of large-scale zero tillage method for sowing
seed is very effective towards increasing production of garlic by saving
costs of labour, irrigation and insecticides.
He said many government and non-government development entities are
working for furthermore promotion of water-saving crops in the Barind area
while the zero tillage garlic farming opens up a new door to this endeavor.
Lucrative market price of garlic has also encouraged the farmers to grow
the cash crop this winter, the BARI scientist said.
Under a project titled, ‘Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM)’,
around 1,250 volunteers are working in the Barind region to motivate farmers
to use water-saving crops like wheat, maize, pulses, spices and vegetables.
Prof Chowdhury Sarwar Jahan, a teacher of the Department of Geology and
Mining at Rajshahi University, said the IWRM project is being implemented in
39 Union Parishads and three Pourashava in Rajshahi, Naogaon and
Chapainawabganj districts since 2015.
He suggested development and dissemination of appropriate farm
machineries like power-tiller operated seeder, strip and zero tillage, bed
planter, reaper and thresher to increase farm production, particularly wheat
and spices, in the region.