RAJSHAHI, March 7, 2020 (BSS)- Scores of people including many amateur ones
have built their fortunes through strawberry farming as its commercial
farming is more profitable than many other seasonal fruits and vegetables.
By dint of its extra beneficial aspects, commercial farming of strawberry
has been gaining momentum in the region including the vast Barind tract.
Strawberry is now being sold by the vendors side by side with the markets
in Rajshahi city and its adjacent areas frequently.
Hamidul Haque, a farmer of Puthiya, who is cultivating the cash crop for
more than 10 years, said there has been a bright prospect of its farming
everywhere in the region.
The red juicy and nutritious fruit produced by him is now being supplied to
posh markets in the capital. He said strawberry cultivation is too easy to
grow potato or eggplant. Saplings can be planted in rows during the period
between November and December every year.
Illustrating salient feature of strawberry, a high-value cash crop, he said
the plants start in flowering within one month of plantation and fruits can
be collected till March.
Tazimul Haque, 53, another farmer of Baroipara village under Paba upazila,
said each plant bears around 250 to 300 grams of fruit and some 6,000 plants
can be grown on one bigha of land.
The commercially potential fruit will have a bigger market locally and
globally and benefited the farmers enormously.
Bakkar Ali, another farmer of Parila village, said a large number of
people, mostly unemployed youths, have become dependent on strawberry farming
to earn a living as its cultivation is easier and more profitable than other
crops.
The youths are supplying strawberry to different markets across the country
as the soft fruit is being used in preparing ice-cream, jams, jellies,
pickles, chocolates and biscuits. Professor Dr Manzur Hossain, who is a
pioneer in the country’s strawberry research, variety innovation and growers’
level farming expansion, said Bangladeshi strawberry variety has been
adjudged as world’s best strawberry.
Farming of the juicy fruit is already in motion of many districts under the
region. With the average price of a kilogram of Strawberry standing at Taka
700, the commercially viable fruit presents great export potentials and
ushers in economic prospects for those who wish to get high and fast returns
from limited land resources.
“We have innovated three varieties of strawberry through applying tissue
culture method,” said Prof Hossain, a senior teacher of the Department of
Botany in Rajshahi University. All the varieties are being cultivated
massively as those were found adaptive to the region’s soil and environmental
conditions, he added.
Strawberry, a succulent fruit popular in different parts of the globe, is
also gradually becoming popular among the local people. Farmers’ level
extension of strawberry farming can bring a new horizon to the agriculture
sector in the region, he mentioned.
The fruit will no doubt be a profitable crop for farmers, he said, adding,
“If it is grown on a large scale, the highly nutritious fruit will come
within the reach of the common people. There will be no need for imports. Due
attention should be given to motivating the farmers so that they could be
encouraged towards farming the cash crop commercially as it has high economic
importance.”