86,000 tonnes of mustard to be produced in Rangpur

DOT Desk
The Department of Agriculture Extension fixed a target for farmers to produce 86,079 tonnes of mustard on 66,728 hectares of land in all eight districts of two agriculture regions under the Rangpur division this season, reports The New Age.
Department officials said farmers had so far brought 40,036 hectares of land, 60 per cent of the fixed cultivation target, under farming of oilseed till Thursday in both regions of the division.
Horticulture specialist of the department at its regional office in Rangpur Khondker Md Mesbahul Islam said that
sowing of mustard seed was going on in full swing now and the process would continue till the third week of the current month.
Under the programme, 52,210 tonnes of mustard will be produced on 40,473 hectares of land in five districts of the Rangpur agriculture region and 33,869 tones mustard will be grown on 26,255 hectares of land in the Dinajpur agriculture region of Rangpur division.
In the Rangpur agriculture region, farmers had sown mustard seed on 23,900 hectares of land while farmers had sown mustard seeds on 16,136 hectares of land in the three districts of the Dinajpur agriculture region till Thursday.
The farmers had already sowed mustard seeds on 3,500 hectares of land in Rangpur, 5,800 hectares in Gaibandha, 9,030 hectares in Kurigram, 1,420 hectares in Lalmonirhat and 4,150 hectares of land in Lalmonirhat districts.
‘The farmers are mostly cultivating high yielding varieties of mustard like Tori 7, BARI-9, BARI-14, BARI15, BINA-4 and other varieties of the oilseed on more land this time like in the previous season in the division,’ Islam added.
Deputy director of the department at its regional office in Rangpur Md Moniruzzaman said the department and other agriculture related departments and banks were extending assistance to the farmers to make the extensive mustard cultivation programme successful this season.
The farmers were farming the cash crop on more lands after getting repeated bumper productions with excellent prices in recent years by adopting the ‘Short duration Aman rice-mustard-mugbean-short duration Aus rice’ cropping pattern to reap high profits.
‘Sowing of mustard seeds in the huge char areas on the Dharla, Teesta, Brahmaputra, Kartoa, Atrai and Jamuna and other riverine tracts has already been completed in the mainland,’ Moniruzzaman added.
Farmers Ariful Haque and Manik Mian of village Najirdigar in Rangpur said they had already completed the sowing of mustard seeds on their lands and the tender plants of the crop were growing superbly amid favourable climatic conditions.
Predicting bumper production of mustard this season, regional additional director of the DAE Shah Alam said the government was assisting the farmers to increase production of the oilseed and make the country self-reliant in edible oil.