Farmers of Nilphamari district have revolutionized mustard cultivation. Now the mustard is being threshed in the yards of farmers. Agriculture officials are expecting a bumper crop of mustard as the weather is favorable this time. Farmers are turning to mustard cultivation as it is more profitable at low cost. Farmers have exceeded the target of agriculture department in mustard cultivation. The district agriculture extension directorate has informed that mustard has been cultivated on more than 5,500 hectares of land than the target. Agriculture officials also said that 5 thousand Tk are spent on mustard cultivation in one bigha of land.
Shahadat Alam, a farmer of Balagram Union of Jaldhaka Upazila of the district, said that he got 5 tons of mustard this time. His production cost was 2.5 to 3 thousand rupees. In the last season, we had to calculate the losses by cultivating potatoes.
According to the agriculture department of the district, about 30 thousand rupees have been spent on potato cultivation in one disturbance. Farmers are cultivating mustard because of low cost and high profit. Apart from this, the government wants to be self-sufficient in edible oil within 3 years. The government does not want to depend on imported soybean oil. Meanwhile, the trend of consuming mustard oil has increased among the people of the country.
The agricultural officials of the district said that the cost of potato production is about 40,000 taka. 2/3 thousand Tk are being spent on cultivating mustard on one's own land. And the cost of cultivated land (including fertilizer and other expenses) is Tk 5,000. The cost of mustard cultivation is lower in the land where pepper is grown. As the reason, the farmers said that the manure remains after harvesting the pepper in the pepper field. Therefore, fertilizer is not required. Therefore, the cost of mustard cultivation on that land falls from 2 to 2.5 thousand taka.
According to the information provided by the District Agriculture Extension Department, 25 thousand 550 tons of mustard oil will be available in the district this time. They also said - this time there has been a rich harvest of mustard throughout the country and many people of the country have started using mustard oil.
Dependence on mustard oil will reduce soybean imports. This will prevent wastage of foreign currency of the country. The district agriculture officials consider this a great success of the government's agriculture department. Mustard is now being bought and sold in the bazaar. Akmal, a farmer who came to sell mustard at the Jaldhaka Market of the district, said that last week, dried mustard was bought and sold for Tk 2,800 and dried mustard at Tk 3,000 to Tk 3,000. They are happy to get a good price for mustard cultivation this time.
Jaldhaka Upazila Agriculture Officer Sumon Ahmed said, bumper crop of mustard has been produced in the upazila. Farmers are expected to get higher prices this time.
