By Muktar Hossain from Harirampur (Manikganj)

Farmers in the char (riverine island) areas of Harirampur Upazila in Manikganj district are making good profits by cultivating sweet pumpkins on sandy soils. Utilizing the suitability of the soil and climate, they are selecting crops based on their own knowledge and experience. Since most of the char land is sandy-loam, the fertility increases each year as floodwaters recede and deposit silt, allowing farmers to grow multiple crops on the same land.

Lily Begum, a farmer from Patgram Char in Lechraganj Union, shared that after floodwaters receded in the Bengali month of Bhadra, she prepared her land for onion cultivation and planted the Murikata onion variety. She spent around. She has been profited cultivating onions. In the same land, between the rows of onions, she dug holes and sowed seeds of a local variety of sweet pumpkin using cow dung as fertilizer. The pumpkins grew without requiring any extra care.

She said, “We don’t spend anything extra for sweet pumpkin cultivation, except for using pheromone traps to control fruit flies.” This season, she produced 60 maunds of sweet pumpkins on 30 decimals of land and earned BDT 36,000.

In 2020, with technical support from BARCIK, 10 farmers from Lechraganj, Boyra, and Ramkrishnapur unions began experimental sweet pumpkin cultivation on 657 decimals of land. Today, cultivation has expanded, with 50 farmers growing pumpkins on 13 acres of land.

BARCIK is supporting interested farmers in the char areas by providing training, seed assistance, and technical guidance.

Razzak Molla, a farmer from Patgram Char, said, “We must choose crops suited to the soil of the char. In order to cope with natural disasters, multiple crop cultivation is necessary. If the government supports sweet pumpkin farming, farmers will benefit even more.”

This successful sweet pumpkin cultivation on the sandy char lands has brought both hope and economic relief to the farmers.