Farmers are cultivating sunflower as new oilseed crop on vast tracts of land raising total oilseed cultivation acreage in Jhalakathi.
Sources at Department of Agriculture Extension in Jhalakati said a target was fixed to bring 6,830 hectares of land under oilseed like mustard, peanut and sesame cultivation in four upazilas in this winter.
Brac, a non-government organisation, has endeavoured to boost oilseed farming to a greater extent with the target of bringing 694 hectares of land in Sadar and Rajapur upazilas under sunflower farming as a new oilseed.
The leading NGO, under its food safety programme, has also planned to assemble 1,000 farmers of the two upazilas to cultivate sunflower on cooperative basis.
In the meantime, some 477 farmers have already started cultivating sunflower on 380 hectares of land in sadar upazila and 470 ones on 314 hectares in Rajapur upazila.
Farmer Hayat Khan, of Gabkhan village, said he was preparing his land for cultivating sunflower. The land was used for paddy farming earlier.
Another farmer Abdur Rahim, of the same area, said after harvesting of Aman paddy, he prepared his land for sunflower farming and was sowing seeds of the winter crop.
Talking to UNB, Champak Aich, manager of Brac’s food safety programme in Jhalakati, said farmers have to spend Tk14,000 for cultivating sunflower on per acre of land.
On an average, production of the winter crop is 30 tonnes per acre of land, he said, adding that growers can make profit of Tk22,000 out of the crop produced per acre of land.
The cholesterol-free sunflower oil is considered as ideal edible oil for cardiac and diabetes patients, they added.
