Over 9.32 lakh tonnes onion production expected in Rajshahi division
Over 9.32 lakh tonnes of onion is expected to be produced from around 88,800 hectares of land in all eight districts under the Rajshahi division during the ongoing Rabi season.
The Department of Agriculture Extension (DAE) has set a target of producing around 3.14 lakh tonnes of the cash crop from 29,920 hectares of land in four districts in Rajshahi Agricultural Zone, while 6.18 lakh tonnes from 58,880 hectares in four other districts of Bogura Zone.
The DAE has already intensified steps for enhancing onion production through encouraging the farmers in general to mitigate the crisis of the spicy item.
Sudhendra Nath Roy, additional director of DAE, said the grassroots farmers are being given ideas and modern knowledge to get good yield through the best management of fertiliser, irrigation and pesticides.
Read more: Onion Production: DAE in north launches programme aiming self sufficiency
Simultaneously, the farmers are also showing interests towards onion farming side by side with paddy, wheat, maize and winter vegetables amid massive demand and exorbitant price of the spice crop in the present market.
Agriculturist Sudhendra Nath said around 14,000 farmers will get seeds and fertilisers as incentives for onion farming on 4,250 bighas of land in the division under the current Rabi season's agricultural incentive programme. Each of the farmers will get the support for onion farming on ten decimal of land.
Nurul Islam (46), a farmer of Mathura village under Bagmara upazila, said he will cultivate onion on two bighas of land this year instead of the previous year's one bigha. He got lucrative prices for the crops in the past couple of months.
Moyez Uddin, another farmer of Ghasigram village under Mohanpur upazila, said he had cultivated onion on one and half bigha of land. He benefited significantly as he got a good yield and better price. "I'm preparing to bring two bighas of land under the cash crop farming this year," he said.
He said many of the farmers have got good profit through the brisk business of seed-onion during the current season.
In Rajshahi, onion of Tahirpur variety is very popular in the region as most of the farmers have been cultivating it for a long time, he added.
Upazila Agriculture Officer Shamimul Islam said onion farming can be spread onto more lands this year than that of the previous one.
Various government and non-government entities including Barind Multipurpose Development Authority (BMDA) have been conducting different motivational programmes among the farmers to promote the water-saving crops in the drought-prone Barind area.
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