Varieties of early winter vegetables have started appearing in both local and wholesale markets in Rajshahi region making both sellers and buyers happy.

Farmers in the region, including the vast barind tract, are successfully producing early varieties of winter vegetables like cauliflower, cabbage, radish, carrot, turnip, tomato, leafy spinach and red spinach.

Officials at the Department of Agriculture Extension (DAE) said almost 1.5 lakh hectares of land has been brought under vegetables cultivation in the region this year. Production target has been set to around 21.5 tonnes from each hectare of land. Around 2.5 lakh tonnes of vegetables are expected to be produced in Rajshahi region this season.

Over one lakh people of 50 villages are involved in cultivating and selling different types of vegetables in the region.

Anwar Hossain, a farmer of Rajabari village in Codagari upazila, said he spent about Tk 750 for cultivating cauliflowers in one decimal of land and got 1.5 to 2 mounds of crops. The wholesale market price of cauliflower is between Tk 1,200 to Tk 1,400 per mound. He said the farmers were making a profit ofTk 450 to Tk 550 per decimal of land by cultivating early winter vegetables.

Large quantities of vegetables are being transported to Dhaka, Chittagong and other major cities from the region.

Abdus Sobhan, a local trader, said some 15 to 20 trucks were loaded with vegetables everyday going to the capital and other cities.

Early winter vegetables

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A truck can carry up to 5,000 of long gourds. On an average some 80,000 of gourds are being sent to different parts of the country, he added.

Abul Kalam Azad, deputy director of DAE, Rajshahi, told the news agency that vegetables were grown in all the upazilas of Rajshahi district but Paba, Durgapur, Charghat, Bagha, Mohanpur and Bagmara upazilas had fertile land where yields were much higher.