Bablu Jowader from Satkhira (Translated by Silvanus Lamin)
Dilip Tarafder, a farmer from Chandipur village of Shymanagar under Satkhira district located in most climate vulnerable coastal belt, recently was given ‘Independent award’ by the Shymanagar Upazill administration for his contribution in agriculture sector of thr area. He received a crest on 26 March, 2016 as the symbol of the award.
The coastal belt of Bangladesh is a salinity affected area due to its geographical location. And the nature and human created disasters have intensified the level of salinity in the area to some extent. Thus it is a burning need to develop and supply saline tolerant crop varieties to farmers in the area so that they could cope with the changed situation. From this backdrop, Mr. Tarafder has been making self effort to develop saline tolerant rice varieties since 2010 with the objective to make the availability of area specific and saline tolerant rice varieties for the farmers. As part of his effort, he experimentally farmed saline tolerant the advance Khejurchari and good yielded Kutepatnai varieties. After intensively observing the characteristics and traits of those two varieties he crossed the two varieties and invented the fifth generation Charulota which the farmers of the area farm in their fields during the aman season.