BSS, Rangpur :The Department of Agriculture Extension (DAE) has fixed a target of producing 7.33 lakh tonne sweet potato from 44,000 hectares of land in the country during the current 2014-2015 Rabi season, official sources said.Under the programme, the farmers will produce over 1.05 lakh tonne sweet potato from 6,333 hectares of land in the northern region, 14.40 percent of the fixed national target of producing 7.33 lakh tonne of the crop this season.According to DAE sources, steps have been taken to make the farming programme successful of sweet potato, alternative delicious food stuff for rice, and full with nutrients like vitamins A, B and C, minerals, protein, carbohydrate, calcium, iron and carotene.Horticulture Specialist of the DAE Khondker Md. Mesbahul Islam said, side by side with the farmers in the mainland, the char people have been cultivating sweet potato in vast tract of the sandy-barren char lands in the river basins.The sandy-loamy and sandy lands are suitable for sweet potato farming, which creates enormous prospect of increased farming of the low-cost but more profitable crop without using fertilisers and irrigation in the char lands on the Brahmaputra and Ganges basins.Many people living in the remote and hardly reachable riverine char areas have also been consuming sweet potato largely as alternative foodstuff like in many countries in the world.The agriculture related departments and NGOs have been assisting the farmers for an expanded farming of sweet potato and conducting motivational activities, especially in the char areas, to further increase its production this season, he said.SM Nurul Amin Sarker, Editor of the Weekly Juger Khabar being published from Chilmari of Kurigram, said production of sweet potato can be increased largely through providing adequate training, latest technologies and agri-loans to the char people.Farmers Shamsul Haque, Nurul Haque, Shamsuddin Ahmed and Zonab Ali of different char villages said they have already started sowing sweet potato seed on their lands and hoped to earn better profits like in the recent years by cultivating of the cash crop.Deputy Director of DAE for Rangpur Zulfiquer Haider and Chilmari Upazila Agriculture Officer Nazrul Islam said tasty foods like ‘Payesh’, bread, biscuit, cake and pastry can also be prepared through using sweet potato.They suggested the common people for changing food habit and increased production of sweet potato to reduce pressure on rice by and large as sweet potato has the same carbohydrate, more nutrient and vitamin than many other major foods like rice.
