RAJSHAHI, May 12 (BSS): Farmers have become happy with the satisfactory yield of the recent past harvested chickpea commonly known as 'chhola' in the region, including its vast Barind tract, in the current season.
The Department of Agriculture Extension (DAE) set a target to produce 1,869 tonnes of chickpea from 1,563 hectares of land in all the eight districts under Rajshahi division this year.
Farmers are happy with the satisfactory yield of chickpea in the region this year. Mustafizur Rahman, a farmer of Pirijpur village under Godagari upazila in the district, cultivated chickpea on one bigha of land and got a yield worth Tk 7,000 by spending Tk 2,500.
Rahman said chickpea farming is very much cost-effective as it is one of the less-water consuming crops. Like him, many other farmers also harvested better yields generating a prediction of expanding the cash crop farming.
Like him, many other farmers had also gotten better yields, generating a prediction of expanding the cash crop farming in the years to come.
Various research and extension related government and non-government entities including Pulse Research Centre (PRC) and On Farm Research Division (OFRD) of Bangladesh Agriculture Research Institute are working here to promote chickpea farming in the region.
Dr Shakhawat Hossain, Senior Scientific Officer of OFRD (Barind Centre), said there are prospects of harvesting additional 10,000 tonnes of the pulse including chickpea in the high Barind tract comprising Rajshahi, Naogaon and Chapainawabganj districts.
"We are conducting programmes to motivate the farmers to cultivate chickpea on the targeted lands to meet the gradually increasing demands for pulse," he said referring to various salient features of the cash crop.
He said: "No additional cost for fertiliser, pesticide and irrigation is needed to cultivate this sort-term cash crop".
