UNB, Barguna :
A good number of farmers in Amtali upazila of the district have learnt to turn around economically by cultivating different high-yielding varieties (HYV) of vegetables.
Cost-effective farming of the highly profitable vegetables has brought many poor sharecroppers in the upazila economic self-sufficiency.
The sharecroppers narrated their stories of becoming self-reliant to the UNB correspondent while visiting different areas of the upazila recently.
Anisur Rahman, a sharecropper turned self-reliant farmer of Amtoli, said “I made good profit by cultivating HYV vegetables on shared land last year and got good output. This year, I have grown vegetables of these kinds on my own purchased one acre (per acre=30 decimals) of land.”
The farmer said he has already earned Tk50,000 from the sale of this year’s harvest.
Like him, many sharecroppers have similar tales to tell.
They are now farming vegetables on their own lands though they had to depend on others’ lands earlier.
Asked why they inclined to farming of HYV vegetables, the farmers said Payra Agro Ltd, a private seed company, motivated them in mixed farming of HYV vegetables on their farmlands.
They said the company not only gave them instructions to grow two crops on the same land simultaneously but also provided them with high-yielding variety vegetable seeds at lower prices.
Due to the initiative taken by the company, farmers in the area have opted for cultivating pepper, eggplant, tomato, gourd and potato on the same land at the same time.
Expressing gratitude to the company, local farmer Rafiqul Islam said they have switched to new farming as it (the seed company) provided them (farmers) with necessary instructions and seeds at lower prices.
The farmer added he spent Tk one lakh for cultivating pepper, gourd, watermelon and tomato of hybrid varieties on his eight acres of land this season and is expecting to earn Tk four to five lakh by selling produce.
Echoing Rafiqul, another farmer Altaf Hossain of local Gazipur Bazar area, said the seed company has come forward to help farmers living on the cost to survive through encouraging them in mixed cultivation of different HYV vegetables.
Farid Uddin, marketing officer of Paira Agro Ltd, said they provided assistance to farmers in vegetable farming on 250 acres of land at different villages in the upazila this year, adding,” We’ll also take initiative to provide instructions and seeds to the farmers at all villages.”
