Cultivation of summer tomato shows bright prospect in the district, including its vast Barind tract, as many farmers are seen getting lucrative prices from the cash crop farming for the last couple of years.
Summer tomato farming has started bringing diversification in the region's cropping system, besides creating scopes of harvesting tomato during the summer and rainy seasons instead of only in the conventional winter season.
The tomato farming appeared as a fortune changer for many farmers as it made many peasants solvent in the region this year besides infusing dynamism into the local economy.
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Bangladesh Agriculture Research Institute (BARI) has released three hybrid varieties namely hybrid tomato-4, 8 and 11 for summer season. It has also adopted need-based measures to make the varieties popular among the farmers.
The On Farm Research Division (OFRD) of BARI has been working to boost summer tomato production through expanding its cultivation in the region under the “summer tomato adaptive trial production and community-based pilot production programme” project.
Summer tomato adaptive trial productions and community based pilot production programmes are being carried out in the area. Five production programmes in Rajshahi, three in Natore and one in Chapainawabganj districts are being conducted at present with the project intervention.
A total of 30 farmers were imparted need-based training and they were given inputs, including saplings, fertilizer, pesticide and materials free of cost on behalf of the project.