Students of Jhenidah ATI produce 60 crop varieties

Our Correspondent
JHENIDAH, Oct 27: Agriculture Training Institute (ATI), Jhenidah, has become a role model introducing a special programme of learning, doing and consuming, internally known as 'Shikhi, Kori, Khai'.
Founded on 21.38 acres of land at Charmuraridah village in 2003, five kilometres off Jhenidah town, the ATI is now a model for other ATIs across the country for the unique programme. Over 16 acres of land which was completely out of cultivation here were already brought under cultivation.
There study over five hundred students in the institute among whom one-fourth is female learners.
All the students work on crop fields with their teachers, being divided into eight units.
Here now the students consider themselves as learners-cum-farmers producing around sixty types of crops including paddy, fruits, flowers and vegetables.
The students get opportunity to experience the theoretical knowledge of the classes in reality on the farmlands.
This distinctive pursuit renders the young learners equipped enough to grow skilled agricultural hands in time to come. The students become useful manpower indeed.
A huge number of vegetables including sweet pumpkin, arum, papaya, ghimakalmi, chichinga, jhinga, spinac, basil, red spinach, coriander, brinjal, and others are grown here with intensive care using a reduced quantity of fertiliser. Insecticides are not used in growing the crops.
In the low land areas of the ATI, fish with paddy is cultivated.
1.5 acres have already been brought under cultivation of flowers, to name rose, merry-gold, tuberose, gladiolus, jasmine, calendula and cactus. There also lie fruits trees like mango, dragon, jackfruit, developed variety of Vietnamese cocoanut, guava, lemon and so on. All these things are produced commercially, fetching considerable amount of money to the institution.
After consumption by the students, the grown crops, fruits and vegetables are sold in the local market.
Nazim Uddin, sub-assistant instructor of the ATI, said they introduced the program inspired by the principal (in-charge) Md. Abdul Kader in 2014, aiming at giving students practical opportunities to materialise what they acquire in their classrooms.
"But we do not get the fair prices of our produces for lack of proper marking system unavailable in our district town", he added.
However, to the great inconvenience of the field-level learning system, the institute lacks in agricultural teaching aids including computer lab, modern multimedia projector, photo copier, combined harvesters, tractors, power tillers, weeders and other devices.
Of the earned money from the sales of the products, one-third is submitted to the government exchequer. The rest two-third is distributed among students as education assistance stipend and welfare activities as well as purchase of agri-inputs.
Md. Abdul Kader, Principal (in-charge), ATI, Jhenidah said that they distributed Tk 55,000 among 110 students and Tk 74,500 among to 239 last year and this year respectably as education assistant stipend. This is something Agricultural training institutes throughout the country also took as a model, he added.
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