The chars (landmass emerging from riverbed) of the Teesta river in Kaunia upazila of Rangpur have turned into fertile land for growing pumpkin due to the efforts of the landless people.

The growers hosted a daylong programme at Taluk-Shahbaz char on Sunday to celebrate their success.

SM Bakhtiar, director, Saarc Agriculture Centre, Bangladesh; Hasin Jahan, country director Practical Action Bangladesh (PAB); Dr Shiva Sankar Giri, director Saarc Agriculture Centre, India; Dr WART Wickramaarachchi, director, Saarc Agriculture Centre, Sri Lanka; Dr Pradymna Raj Panday, director, Saarc Agriculture Centre, Nepal; Tayan R Gurung, representative of Saarc Agriculture Centre, Bhutan, and Ferdous Islam of Bangladesh Agriculture Research Institute (Bari) attended the programme.

The visiting delegates were surprised when they saw thousands of pumpkins growing in the sandy land.

This can be a model for char people in and outside Bangladesh, the visiting foreign delegates said, appreciating the landless people for turning the sandy land into productive land. The foreign delegates said such initiatives would help eliminate poverty from isolated areas in the countryside.

“Farming pumpkin really helped us change our fortune,” said Monwara Begum, who used to be a domestic help. She started growing pumpkin on 25 kathas of sandy land three years ago. 

Swadhin Roy said his life changed after he started growing pumpkin.

Manager of PAB (Rangpur region) Nirmal Chandra Bapary said that nearly 3,100 landless people have been growing pumpkin on 458 hectares of sandy land.

PAB and USAID are jointly assisting the farmers.

The growers produced around 1,400 tonnes of pumpkins.

A six-member team of agriculture experts, led by Vice-Chancellor of Hajee Mohammad Danesh Science and Technology University (HSTU) Dr M Abul Kashem, visited the pumpkin fields on Saturday. “The pumpkin even tastes sweeter,” said Prof Dr Hasan Fuad el Taj, chairman of the Department of Entomology

The other members were Dr Bidhan Chandra Haldar of the Department of Horticulture, Professor AKM Mosharaf Hossain of the Department of Soil Science, Professor Dr Sripati Shikdar of the Department of Plant Pathology and Prof ATM Shafiqul Islam of the Department of Agronomy.

Agriculture Officer of the Department of Agriculture Extension in the upazila Shamimur Rahman said the landless people started growing pumpkin on the chars around five years ago.