PABNA, Apr 26: The roadside vegetable and fruit cultivation is gaining popularity in the district.
Vegetables and fruits are meeting nutritional needs of farmers. Besides, farmers are making extra earning by selling their surplus vegetables and fruits.
According to Upazila Agriculture Office sources, the Department of Agriculture Extension (DAE) is working to encourage farmers to bring roadsides under cultivation without keeping fallow.
DAE officials are giving advice for planting vegetables and native fruits along roadsides, around homesteads and on field lanes.
Vegetable cultivation has started on the sides of several rural roads and on the field aisles of the upazila. Besides, farmers are being encouraged to plant native vegetables and native fruits on both sides of roads and highways.
A visit to Atghoria, Pabna Sadar and Ishawrdi upazilas found different vegetables and fruits including banana and papaya along both sides of the road.
Also beans, sweet pumpkin, cucumber, drumstick, and others were seen on roadsides in different villages including Marmi, Sultanpur, Bakhtarpur, Muladuli, Mirkamari, Kamalpur, and Arpara.
Rezaul Karim, a farmer of Atghoria Upazila, said, o brinjal and chilli saplings have been planted on canal aisle. Vegetables produced here are sold to surrounding people after meeting needs of family, he added.
Farmer Alimuzzaman Channa said, "We have started cultivation on these abandoned lands. I am advising others for cultivation."
Abdur Rashid, a farmer from Barohasia Village, said, he has benefited by planting bean along the roadside.
Sub-Assistant Agriculture Officer Sujan Kumar Roy said, farmers cultivated different vegetables including brinjal and bean on irrigation canals; papaya, drum stick, pepper, and tomato have also been farmed on both sides of the road.
The agriculture office is giving them all kinds of advice for cultivation. Vegetable saplings are also given to them, he added.
Ishwardi Upazila Agriculture Officer Mita Sarkar said, "According to instructions of the Prime Minister we are giving various suggestions to the farmers for planting vegetables and fruity trees on both sides of the road, so that no space remains uncultivated".
