By Mamun Islam
Hundreds of river-eroded, landless, small and marginal farmers are expecting bumper production of various Rabi crops cultivated on the dried-up riverbeds and charlands in the northern districts this season.
The excellent growing crops have worn eye-catching looks creating huge enthusiasm among the charlanders, riverside people and farmers and harvests of those will be completed before commencement of the upcoming rainy season.
According to the Department of Agriculture Extension (DAE) and NGO sources, hundreds of people have been cultivating crops increasingly on charlands and dried-up riverbeds as well as their tributaries in the northern districts in recent years.
During the current Rabi season, they have cultivated Rabi crops on about 75,000 hectares land on the dried-up beds of the Brahmaputra, Teesta, Dharla, Ghaghot, Jamuna and tributaries and char areas in the northern districts.
Horticulture Specialist of the DAE Khandaker Md. Mesbahul Islam said farmers have mostly cultivated wheat, maize, mustard, pulse, Boro, tobacco, vegetables, groundnut, pumpkin, ‘china’, ‘kawn’, pulses, ‘gunji till’, corn, watermelon and other crops this season.
Agriculture and Environment Coordinator of RDRS Bangladesh Mamunur Rashid said crop cultivation on these lands takes place due to drying up of the rivers and abnormal rise of their beds with hundreds of shoals as a result of massive silt deposition every year.
The drying up of rivers and deposition of silts have been continuing at alarming rates during the past four decades as a result of the adverse impacts of climate change, lifting of underground waters and other manmade reasons, he mentioned.
Executive Director of North Bengal Institute of Development Studies Dr Sayed Samsuzzaman said farming on the riverbeds is not good news though the people are cultivating crops there and getting excellent productions. -BSS
