Farmers in Jhenaidah are making good profit by cultivating cauliflower and cabbage in summer due to their huge demand among customers and high market price.
Farmers said cultivation of the vegetables begins in the Bengali month of Ashar (June-July) and some 3,500 to 4,000 seedlings can be planted on per bigha of land.
From planting seedling to harvest it takes over three months and farmers have to invest around Tk25,000 to Tk30,000 for per bigha while the vegetables yielded from the lands can be sold over Tk10 lakh helping them to earn profit by around Tk70, 000.
Farmer Monirul Islam shared, “This year, despite extreme heat and heavy rainfall, we managed to market our cabbage within 90 days.”
On average, farmers yield about five tonnes of cabbage and three tonnes of cauliflower from per bigha.
Parvez, a farmer from Lakshmipur village, said that seeds, fertilisers, and pesticides cost around Tk25,000 to Tk30,000 for per bigha.
He said they are making a good profit due to reasonable market prices this year. Moreover the farmers earned Tk 50,000 to 60,000 profit by selling cabbage from per bigha last year.
Wholesale trader Sirajul Islam said that the price of cabbage depends on market demand and size. This year, the size of the cabbages is slightly smaller.
Hence, he is buying the cabbage from farmers at Tk18 to Tk22 per piece before sending them to Dhaka, he added.
Shashti Chandra Roy, deputy director of Department of Agricultural Extension in Jhenaidah, said a total of 5,429 hectares of land in the district has been brought under cauliflower, cabbage, and other vegetables cultivation.
He hoped that 17.12 metric tonnes of vegetables would be yielded from each hectare of land.
All types of vegetables are cultivated in the off-season due to the high soil of the district.
No waterlogging creates in the arable land, he said.
Due to less natural disasters in this district than other districts, it is possible to cultivate summer vegetables well, the DAE official added.
