Nikli farmers happy with red chilli price

Red chilli cultivation is gaining popularity among the people of remote haor area in Nikli upazila of Kishoreganj due to its high yield.

Growers are now making a huge profit by cultivating red chilli in the haors where they could not produce anything just couple of years ago.

Md Omar Faruk, a farmer of Gurui village in Nikli told this correspondent that he cultivated red chilli on 25 decimal of land on experimental basis and got four maunds of dried chillies and eight maunds of green chillies. He earned Tk 35, 000 selling chillies but his production cost was around Tk 8,000.

Samed Mia earned Tk 20, 000 only selling dried chillies cultivated in 11 decimal land only. He said this year per kg red chilli is selling at Tk 120 and per maund at Tk 5000-5500.

Samed said, he cultivated rice and vegetable on the land couple of years ago, but it was hard for him to get back the production cost.

Seeing the success of cultivating dried red chillies, many people of the haor have started cultivating chilli on their lands.

Visiting the area of Gurui, Chatirchar, Jaroitola, Singpur, Karpasha, and Dampara village in Nikli upazila on Saturday, growers were seen collecting red chilli this season. Farmers said they made a good profit by selling it.

"My red chilli field draws attention of the people who visit to see red chilli production," said Abdul Karim, another grower of the area.

Nikli upazila agriculture officer Md Harun-ar-Rashid said, the spice item was cultivated on 280 hectares of land in the upazila, which is 40 hectares more that the actual target.

District Agriculture Officer Md Shafiqul Islam said Kishoreganj's Department of Agriculture Extension provided all sorts of necessary support to the growers to make the farming successful this year.

Seeing the success of the farmers, many growers of the area are now showing interest in red chilli farming, Shafiqul added.