RANGPUR: Expanded cultivation of various crops has been turning vast tracts of the dried-up riverbeds and char areas into green fields along the Brahmaputra basin, reports BSS. Thousands of landless, char people and farmers have cultivated various crops during this Rabi season on over 85,000 hectares (ha)of char lands and dry-up beds of the Brahmaputra, Teesta, Dharla, Ghaghot, Jamuna and other rivers in the north. According to sources in the Department of Agriculture Extension (DAE) and different NGOs, cultivation of crops has been increasing on char lands and dried-up riverbeds every year in recent times.
The farmers have completed sowing seed of most of the Rabi crops, the tender crop plants are growing superbly and now preparing for transplantation of seedling of the early variety Boro rice in those lands along the river basin.
The char people will begin harvest of mustard seed by middle of January next though harvest of the other crops on dried-up riverbeds and char lands will be completed before commencement of the next rainy season.
According to char people Nur Hossain, Amirul Islam, Solaiman Ali, Ahsan Habib, Bulbuli Begum and Ambia Khatun, they have cultivated various crops on the dried-up riverbeds and char lands this season to harvest those mostly from February next.They said the Teesta, Dharla, Brahmaputra, Ghaghot, Kartoa and other rivers and tributaries have almost dried up now giving rise to hundreds of shoals on their beds hampering navigability and paving the way for crop cultivation.Nurul Amin Sarker, Editor of the Weekly Juger Khabar being published from Chilmari upazila town in Kurigram said the situation occurs every year much ahead of the dry season enabling the farmers in cultivating crops on dried-up riverbeds and char lands.
Horticulture specialist of DAE Khondker Md. Mesbahul Islam said char people have mostly cultivated mustard, wheat, maize, pulse, Boro, tobacco, vegetables, groundnut, pumpkin, 'china', 'kawn', pulses, 'gunji till', watermelon and other crops on these lands. "Abnormal drying up of the rivers and deposition of silts continues alarmingly in recent decades due to climate change, lifting of underground water and other manmade reasons paving the way for crop cultivation of the riverbeds," he added. Adviser- Agriculture of BRAC International (South Asia and Africa) Dr M A Mazid said cultivation of crops on the riverbeds has become possible due to drying up of the rivers and abnormal rise of their beds as a result of massive silt deposition.