Potato yield delights Sylhet cultivators

Our Correspondent

SYLHET, Mar 10: There has been a good yield of potato in different areas of Sylhet this year. So far 5,085 hectares of the crop had already been harvested while the total area cultivated was 7,806 hectares in the four districts of the division, official sources said on Friday. So far 93,411 tonnes of potato has been harvested while the rest would be completed in a week.

The harvest reports show on average 18.5 tonnes of potato has been produced in the district of Sylhet where total cultivated area was at 1,695 hectares. It is 19 tonnes in Moulvibazar with cultivated land at 2,262 hectares and 20 tonnes in Habiganj district with a total of cultivated land of same area at 2262 hectares while the Sunamganj district got lowest 16 tonnes 1.25 tonnes per hectare. The cultivated area there was 1,587 hectares.

This is why the division's average potato yield so far stood at 18.37 tonnes, the official added.

Per hectare yield of potato would have been better since the farmers suffered a little due to late preparation of their lands for the crop, said an official at the Sylhet divisional office of DAE. The DAE had set some demonstration plots in different areas to woo the common and new farmers in the crop, since huge tracts of land remain uncultivated in greater Sylhet during the Rabi season.

Although it is slow the potato farming had been on rise in the Sylhet division whereas it was neglected years ago. Many of the farmers however, were found interested on the crop due to its rising demand. This year the crop was been cultivated on 7,806 hectares of land in the division's four districts.

The DAE had earlier targeted for bringing over 800 hectares of land under potato farming this season in the division.

Although the region's demand of potato is mainly met by the produce of other regions of the country, its farming area is getting upward day by day, officials said.

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