BSS, Narsingdi
Cultivation of Bangi fruit (kind of melon) is gaining ground in Narsingdi district due to its good market price and less risk in production, reports BSS.
Successful yield of the juicy fruit brings a substantial amount of money to the farmers. Bangi is a delicious and nutritious fruit. It is generally cultivated in char lands where scope of others crop cultivation is limited.
Hundreds of farmers in the char areas of Narsingdi Sadar, Raipura and Belabo upazilas have involved themselves in Bangi farming in the vast areas of infertile char lands of the Meghna and Arial Kha rivers for long and they are becoming self-reliant.
Farmers of the char villages are used to cultivate Bangi on a commercial basis. With minimum financial involvement, the farmers can harvest thousands of Bangi fruit worth about Taka one lakh per acre of land.
Shovan Kumar Dhar, deputy director of Department of Agriculture Extension, said over 1,000 acres of land have been brought under the Bangi cultivation in the three char upazilas of the district.
Many poor farmers have changed their fortune by growing Bangi, he said. Farmers are working on their Bangi fields all day long, BSS correspondent saw while visiting different char areas of Sadar and Raipura upazilas recently. Some of them are picking the fruit from the land with much enthusiasm, he said.
Talking to BSS farmer Abdul Ali of Alokbali char said Taka five to six hundred is needed to cultivate Bangi on one bigha of land.
He said this year he has cultivated Bangi on four bighas of barren lands beside the Meghna river at a cost of only Taka 2500.
Abdul Ali hoped that he would pick up 4000 to 5000 pieces of Bangi from the land which estimated market value of around Taka one lakh to 1.20 lakh.
Most of the farmers termed that Bangi is a profitable crop.
