Experts at a daylong workshop have stressed for enhancing production of summer variety onion side by side with winter varieties to reduce import of the essential commodity and achieve self-reliance on the spicy crop.
They put special emphasis on increasing production of quality summer variety onion seed and ensuring its smooth supply among the farmers along with the latest technologies to achieve the goal for meeting growing demand with the locally produced onion.
They were addressing the daylong workshop on ‘Development of Integrated Management Approach for Quality Seed Production of Kharif Onion’ organised by Spices Research Sub-Centre of Bangladesh Agriculture Research Institute (BARI) at its Training Centre in Lalmonirhat on Saturday.
Director of Bogra Spices Research Centre Dr Bhagya Rani Banik attended the workshop as the chief guest with Senior Scientific Officer Mohammad Alauddin Khan, also Officer-in-Charge of Lalmonirhat Spices Research Sub-Centre, in the chair.
Member of the Board of Management of BARI Khalilur Rahman Mondal, Chief Scientific Officer of BARI at Burirhat in Rangpur Dr Abdul Mannaf, Additional Deputy Director (Plant Protection) of the Department of Agriculture Extension (DAE), Lalmonirhat KM Maududul Islam addressed as the special guests.
Scientific Officer of Lalmonirhat Spices Research Sub-Centre Mostaq Ahmed and Senior Scientific Officer Alauddin Khan presented seven research papers in the technical session.
The district and upazila level officials, experts and executives of the DAE, BARI, Agriculture Information Service Centre, different NGOs and representatives of the farmers from all over Rangpur division participated in the workshop.
The experts narrated the impacts of space between onion plants, food ingredients of onion plants, pesticides for controlling pests’ attacks and application of chemicals for conserving ability and other issues, on the production of quality summer variety onion seed. The chief guest said that farming of spicy crops is still remaining uncared and are being cultivated on only two percent of the total cultivable land area throughout the country.
She said the farmers have been cultivating onion as the only farm crop in their fields and other spicy crops are being cultivated mostly on the homestead areas.
“There is no alternative to increasing production of onion to reduce its import as the nation still imports 10 to 12 lakh metric tonnes of onion annually from different countries to meet the growing local demand of the essential commodity,” she said.
Lauding role of the scientists and researchers, she said the BARI has so far evolved 26 varieties of spicy crops, including five onion varieties (two winter and three summer varieties), through conducting research at its seven research centres to increase production of spicy crops in the country.
