Farming of sweet potato ‘Kamala Sundari’ invented by Bangladesh Agriculture Research Institute (BARI) has been expanding in Jhenaidah gradually.
Optimum benefit, introducing new and high yielding variety have been showing new era before the farmers to expand the area of operation, said farmers.
Abed Ali, a farmer of Bijulia village in Shailkupa of Jhenaidah, said he brought his 12 decimals of land under local variety of sweet potato, widely know as Mou Aloo. He had harvested 60 maunds of the potato which was sold at Taka 30 each kilogram on an average. He is expanding the farming n the current season. As the Mo Aloo has a great demand in the rural villages round the year, the farmers could not afraid of remain unsold of the item any time.
Abed Ali said usually a farmer can harvest 250 maunds of the local variety sweet on each hectare of land which could ensure around Taka three lakh within four months. No such profitable crop they had produced yet, said Abed Ali.
A source related to the office of the deputy director of department of agriculture extension (DAE) in Jhenidah, the farmers had produced a total of 1,400 tons of local varieties of sweet potato on 77 hectares of land in the district last season. The DAE has started distributing the seed plants (herbs) of the BARI-2 variety sweet potato Kamala Sundary among the farmers in the district.
DAE sources said the variety was getting popularity after a massive experiment since 1985 at different parts of the country. The variety was developed from Asian Vegetables Research and Development Centre in Taiwan through germ-plazm for years. The variety is able to ensure 400 to 450 tons on each hectare in our climate. The deep orange color fleshy portion of Kamala Sundari had a potential and contains.
The sources said sweet potato is a traditional tuber crop in the country and widely known to the people. Due to its high contents like Vitamin A, carbohydrate and anti occident, the people have been consuming the sweet potato boiling in the water. Huge people for its lucrative taste and flavor, mix the same with flour or atta. It adds some carbohydrate with the food items, they said.
Shailkupa Upazila agriculture officer (UAO) of the DAE Akram Hossain when contacted said the farmers in his area were very much aware and accept any good and high yielding variety for their betterment. Kamala Sundari might play role in strengthening the socio-economic state of the farmers due to its high yield with better market value round the year.
