Farmers here are cultivating sunflower as new oilseed crop on vast tracts of land raising total oilseed cultivation acreage in the southern district.
Sources at the Department of Agriculture Extension (DAE) in Jhalakati said a target was fixed to bring 6,830 hectares of land under oilseed cultivation like mustard, peanut and sesame in four upazilas of the district in the current Rabi (winter) season.
On the other hand, Brac, a non-government organisation (NGO), has endeavoured to boost oilseed farming to a greater extent with the target of bringing 694 hectares of land in Sadar and Rajapur upazilas under sunflower farming as a new oilseed crop.
The leading NGO under its food safety programme has also planned to assemble 1,000 farmers of the two upazilas to cultivate sunflower on cooperative basis.
In the meantime, some 477 farmers have already started cultivating sunflower on 380 hectares of land in sadar upazila and 470 ones on 314 hectares in Rajapur upazila.
Farmer Hayat Khan of Gabkhan village of Sadar upazila said he is preparing his land that was earlier used for paddy farming for cultivating sunflower.
Another farmer Abdur Rahim of the same area said after harvesting of Aman paddy, he prepared his land for sunflower farming and is now sowing seeds of the winter crop.
Farmer Abdul Latif of the same village said he harvested paddy from his four bighas of land late and was tilling the land for sunflower cultivation.
He expressed optimism to earn substantial profit from sunflower farming.
Talking to UNB, Champak Aich, manager of Brac’s food safety programme in Jhalakati, said farmers have to spend Tk14,000 for cultivating sunflower on one acre (per acre=30 decimals) of land.
On an average, production of the winter crop is 30 tonnes per acre of land, he said, adding that growers can make profit of
Tk22,000 by selling their produce from one acre land.
Besides, sunflower output might exceed 30 maunds per acre if the crop field is nurtured well.
Farmers said oil produced from sunflower seeds crushing is selling for Tk14,000 per maund (one maund is equivalent to 37.32 kilogrammes).
The cholesterol-free sunflower oil is considered as ideal edible oil for cardiac and diabetes patients, they added. –UNB, Jhalakati
