Rangpur vegetable farmers switching to pheromone trap from pesticides

RANGPUR, Aug 19: A good number of farmers at different villages under Mithapukur Upazila in the district are producing vegetables using eco-friendly pheromone trap instead of harmful pesticides and they are getting financially benefited by using the trap at lesser cost in comparison with pesticides.
Pheromone is a chemical substance that is produced by an insect. It usually serves as a stimulus for other individual of the same species. It is used in a certain products to lure and trap unwanted or harmful insects.
Different varieties of toxic-free vegetable including eggplant, parble, bitter gourd and spiny gourd are being grown in several villages of the upazila abundantly using the trap.
"I have cultivated vegetables on two bighas of land without using any pesticides. After meeting up family requirements, I sell it. A number of farmer families in the village are engaged in producing vegetables in this way," said Kashem Mia of Fulchouki village in the upazila.
"We do not use any insecticide to produce vegetables. Instead we use pheromone trap. Such vegetables are healthy, tasty and more nutritious," Akmal Miah (50) of Jumakhanpara village under the upazila, told The Financial Express.
"Local people purchase chemical-free vegetables from the field grown without insecticides," Akkas Ali, another farmer of the same village told the FE.
Ismail Hossain, a schoolteacher at Ranipukur area, said he makes advance payment to the vegetable growers to get chemical-free vegetables.
Talking to The Financial Express a number of farmers under the upazila said farmers have to spend a large amount of money on insecticides on their vegetable fields. On the other hand they have to spend a nominal cost using pheromone trap.  
Farmers at many villages have started cultivating vegetables without chemicals as officials of the Department of Agriculture Extension (DAE) are encouraging them, and seeing their success many farmers of the areas and adjacent areas are also showing enthusiasm to cultivate poison free vegetables, DAE sources said.
Upazila Agriculture Officer Iqbal Hossain said, farmers in the areas are now very much interested in using pheromone trap instead of harmful pesticide at lesser cost.  Pheromone trap is a chemical capsule which is kept in a plastic bottle half-filled with water. The female sex hormone insects that attract the male who get drowned into the water kept in the bottle of the pheromone trap. "We are motivating the farmers to produce pesticide free vegetables using the trap and the farmers are also showing their eagerness to use it", he added.