Cultivation of orange on commercial basis has become popular in the sub-Himalayan northern districts where farmers have been getting excellent production of the high-priced aristocrat fruit in recent years.
The farmers have started harvesting orange and are expecting its bumper yield this season in the sub-Himalayan Panchagarh and Thakurgaon districts like in the previous years, officials in the Department of Agriculture Extension (DAE) said.
Horticulture Specialist Khondker Md. Mesbahul Islam of the DAE said that the farmers have been cultivating orange on commercial basis in recent years in their orchards and homesteads after getting repeated bumper productions.
Orange farming has become popular in these two districts since its commercial cultivation began under the five-year term (2006-2011) Orange Development Project (ODP) of the DAE.
Now, there are 3.15 lakh orange trees including tender and fruit giving ones in over 460 small, medium and large-scale orchards and many homesteads on nearly 245 hectares of land in these districts.
The DAE under its ODP successfully expanded orange farming through producing and distributing saplings, nurturing old fruit-giving trees, farming in the orchards, homesteads and exhibition plots till the project ended in June, 2011.
Orange farmers Asir Uddin Ahammed, Achinta Kumar Karkun, Jitendra Nath, Salah Uddin, Mohir Uddin, Kakka Pradhan and Abdul Jalil said they are facing some problems in setting up of new orchards and gardens since expiry of the project in June 2011.
According to DAE’s Deputy Directors Nazrul Islam of Panchagarh and Belayet Hossain of Thakurgaon, commercial orange cultivation has brighter prospect to change the overall socio-economy of the sub-Himalayan region.
Quality oranges are being produced in the nearby Darjeeling, Jalpaiguri and Shiliguri districts of India having similar topography like Panchagarh and Thakurgaon for many decades, they said.
Farmers Abdul Gaffar Chowdhury, Abdur Rahman and Shajedur Rahman of Panchagarh and Kanai Lal, Abdur Rahman, Safir Uddin and Manjuara Begum of Thakurgaon narrated their success in farming orange and earning good profits.
The enthusiastic farmers urged for reviving the expired project to ensure expanded orange cultivation on commercial basis as they are getting excellent production of the best quality oranges with excellent tastes, flavours and colours in recent years. -BSS, Rangpur
