RANGPUR, May 25 (BSS): The small, marginal, river- eroded and landless farmers have achieved bumper production of various crops cultivated in the vast tracts of the dried-up riverbeds and char lands in the northern districts this season.
According to the Department of Agriculture Extension (DAE), local and NGO sources, the farmers have already completed harvest to be happy getting excellent production of crops in the Brahmaputra river basin.
The riverside people and char dwellers had cultivated various crops on over 85,000 hectares of land on the dried up river beds and char lands on the Brahmaputra basin during this Rabi season got excellent yield.
According to sources, cultivation of crops has become possible on the shoals, dried up riverbeds and char lands of the Brahmaputra, Teesta, Dharla, Ghaghot, Jamuna and other rivers due to massive deposition of alluvial soils following climate change impacts.
The farmers had mostly cultivated Boro rice, maize, wheat, vegetables, onion, garlic, groundnut, 'china', 'kaun', pulses, 'gunji till', tobacco, pumpkin, gourd, corn, pulses, mustard, other oil seeds, sweet potato and watermelon on these lands this season.
Char dwellers Aminul Haque, Moksedur Rahman, Baset Ali, Aminul Haque, Akbar Ali, Sultan Hossain, Sekendar Ali and Habibur Rahman of different char areas on the river Brahmaputra said they have got bumper crop production this year.
They said they have already completed harvest of their cultivated Boro, mustard, wheat, green chilli, vegetables, pumpkin, sweet potato, ground nut, onion, garlic, and many other crops to get excellent yield this season.
River-eroded people of village Paschim Mohipur under Gangachara upazila Lokman Hossain, Mahbub Alam, Kobiza Begum, Abdur Razzaque and Morsheda Begum also got bumper production of crops cultivated on the Teesta riverbed this season.
Similarly, landless riverside people Abdul Aziz of Nilphamari, Farman Ali of Lalmonirhat, Nur Islam of Kurigram, Manju Rani of Gaibandha have got bumper output of their cultivated various crops on sandy-barren char lands.
Horticulture specialist of the DAE Khondker Md Mesbahul Islam said crop cultivation on these lands has been taking place due to drying up and silting up of the rivers with emergence of shoals following adverse impacts of climate change.
The crops grew excellently and the farmers have already completed harvest before beginning of the rainy season though some crops like jute in fewer places are still growing under the threat of early floods, he said.
This season, the crop growers went for large-scale farming in the dried up riverbeds amid adverse impacts of the climate change and cultivated various crops successfully to get bumper yield.
