About 39,872 hectares of land have been brought under mustard farming in Tangail during the current season. The plantation area of the winter cash crop was extended after addition of a large portion of the land that was left vacant for harvest of Aman paddy. Farmers in the district have harvested bumper yield. But its price has fallen short of farmers’ expectation.
Abul Hashem, deputy director of the Department of Agricultural Extension (DAE) in Tangail, said a total of 39872 hectares of land have been brought under mustard farming under 12 upazilas of Tangail district during the current year with a production target of 45899 tonnes. Out of the total, HYV was cultivated on 11730 hectares of and local variety on 25126 hectares.
DAE sources said farmers prefer the short-duration BARI-9, BARI-14 and Tory- 7 varieties of mustard seeds. After the harvest of mustard, farmers have brought those lands under Boro paddy
cultivation.
Abul Hossain, Executive Director of Mouchash Unnnoyan Sangstha (MUS), said the production of mustard seeds has increased for beekeeping in the mustard fields. The domestic bees help pollination, he said adding the pollination helps to grow additional production of mustard.
Abul Hashem, the DAE deputy director, said the BARI- 13 and BARI-14 varieties are preferred by the farmers as these are short-duration, high yielding and severe cold tolerant. Weather of the year was favourable for its farming, which helped production in excess of the target, he said.
But the farmers have been disappointed by the low price of the crop. Farmers Nazrul islam, Abu Taher Mia, Abdul Gafur of Mirzapur Upazila said there is no government buying centre in the district.  One maund of mustard is being sold at Tk1100-1250 in the local bazaars.  Some middlemen, local oil mills owners are buying at mustard seeds at low prices, they said adding on the other hand, the prices of seed, fertiliser and pesticides were higher, which raised the production  cost.
Arifur Rahman, Mirzapur upazila agriculture officer, said global price of mustard seeds slumped this year. On the other hand, palm oil, soybean oil, rice bran oil are being used as alternative to mustard oil and are responsible for falling mustard seed prices.