Chuadanga farmers cashing in on banana cultivation

CHUADANGA, Feb 10: Banana cultivation has brought economical solvency and changed the lot of many families in four upazilas of Chuadanga district as it has proved highly profitable and become very popular to the growers.
Many poor, marginal farmers and educated youths who achieved self reliance and changed their fortune through banana farming during the last few years are highly interested in cultivating banana.
Department of Agriculture Extension (DAE) office sources said a total of 995 hectares of land have been brought under banana cultivation this year in four upazilas of the district against 925 hectares of land last year.
Of them 200 hectares of land have been brought under banana cultivation in Chuadanga Sadar Upazila, 250 hectares in Alamdanga, 145 hectares in Damurhuda and 400 hectares in Jibannagar Upazila.
Farmers of the district have been cultivating different types of high-yielding banana like Shobri, Champa, Sagar, Anupam and Jahaji.
 An educated youth Abbas Uddin (33), a banana cultivator of village Dinnathpur under Chuadanga Sadar Upazila said: "I cultivated banana on one bigha of my land in 2009 and got Tk 55 thousand as net profit. Since then I have been cultivating the fruit and gaining good profit by cultivating the crop on commercial basis for the last several years and I am solvent now."
Another cultivator of village Hasadah under Jibannagar Upazila Shehab Mondal (42) said "I cultivated banana on 3 bighas of land spending Tk 52,000. I earned Tk 1,20,000 as net profit by selling the fruit in the local markets last year.''
Deputy Director of DAE of Chuadanga Mr Haribula Sarker said DAE provided training among the banana cultivators and encouraged the unemployed youths and farmers to grow more banana as the soil and climate of the district are very suitable for banana farming.