Farmers attain better mashkalai yield in Rajshahi

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RAJSHAHI, Dec 20, 2018 (BSS)-Harvesting of black gram (mashkalai) is going
on in full-swing everywhere in the region and the farmers are happy with its
yield in the current season.

For long, farmers of the region especially adjacent to the Padma river
basin and other wetlands like Chalan Beel are habituated to mashkalai
farming.

In the current season, farmers have brought around 50,000 hectares of land
under mashkalai farming in almost all eight districts under Rajshahi
division, said SM Mustafizur Rahman, additional director of Department of
Agriculture Extension (DAE).

Repeated bumper production and fair market prices encouraged the
grassroots growers to cultivate the seasonal crop commercially, the official
added.

Abul Hossain, a farmer of Char Mazar Diar village under Paba Upazila in
Rajshahi, told BSS here that farmers are satisfied with post-harvesting yield
of the cash crop and its market price.

He said low production cost and high return are the main reasons for the
popularity of mashkalai. Around 43 to 45 maunds of mashakalai production can
be possible from a hectare of land.

After getting better yield of a high yielding mashkalai variety on the
fallow lands in vast char (riverbed) areas, farmers became happy in both
Rajshahi and Chapinawabganj districts during the current harvesting season.

Nazib Uddin of Char Asariadaha village under Godagari Upazila said local
growers were expanding the farming of mashkalai for high profit.

Nur Muhammad of Diar Manik Chalk village said he had been cultivating
mashkalai on five bigha of land for the last couple of years. Last year he
earned Tk 40,000 from it.

He is expecting more this season. Acreage of the variety, BARIMASH-3,
released by Bangladesh Agriculture Research Institute (BARI), is gradually
increasing as per acre yield is more than the existing indigenous varieties.

Huge char lands of the Padma and Mohananda rivers, which remained fallow
after monsoon for a long time, are being brought under the mashkalai farming
with initiatives of Barind Station of On Farm Research Division (OFRD) of
BARI.

The OFRD is conducting various farmers’ level motivational programmes to
expand farming of BARIMASH-3 in char areas.

Referring to the salient features of the newly released variety, Dr
Shakhawat Hossain, Senior Scientific Officer and Head of OFRD Barind Centre,
said the farmers are very happy with the yield and they are interested in
increasing the acreage.

Golam Mostofa, a farmer of Baliadaying village, said the farmers once used
to cultivate indigenous mashkalai varieties in a scattered way and many of
the lands would remain fallow.

Apart from this, yield of those varieties was very poor; farmers got
hardly one to one and a half mounds per bigha.

After getting seeds from OFRD and according to its guidelines, they have
been cultivating the new variety since last year, he added.

The mashkalai production cost is also less. Per bigha cost of farming the
crop is around Taka 750 whereas its outcome can be Taka 7,000 to 8000.

Dr Shakhawat Hossain said huge land of the char area remained fallow after
receding floodwater every year.

So, there is an enormous scope of improving socio-economic condition of
the local community through the best uses of the fallow lands if those were
brought under BARIMASH-3 farming. He referred to various salient features of
the cash crops. He said: “No additional cost for fertilizer, pesticide and
irrigation is needed to cultivate this sort-term cash crop”.

Traditionally, the Rajshahi and Chapainawabganj districts along with their
vast char areas are very much popular for mashkalai farming and its
production, Dr Hossain added.