Flood water puts watermelon farmers on brink of ruin
Crows pecking at watermelons damaged by stagnant water at a village in Kotalipara upazila of Gopalganj, inset, farmers trying to pump out water from a field.Photo: STAR
Unripe watermelons on over 200 hectares of land in Kotalipara upazila have been totally damaged in the last few days, due to flood water triggered by heavy rain, coupled with tidal surges from the adjoining river. According to sources at Department of Agricultural Extension (DAE), the juicy summer fruit on another 80 hectares, out of a total of 436, have been partially damaged. While visiting the affected areas on Wednesday, this correspondent saw most of the farmlands still under water at Chakpukuria, Nulua, Burua, Machpara and Rothiarpar villages in the upazila. A number of watermelon cultivators were seen trying to remove the flood water by making path or by using irrigation pumps. Victims Bimal Madhu, Niren Roy, Ujjal Majumdar, Binoy Majumdar, Dipok Majumdar, Praful Boiragee and Nirmal Majumdar said over 200 farmers in the areas will incur huge losses as they will not be able to sell the unripe all damaged watermelons. Tapan Ballav of Burua said they had bumper production this year, but the heavy downpour damaged about 8o percent of watermelons at his village. Pulin Chandra Barui of Nolua village said he borrowed a huge amount of money for the cultivation. “Now how will I repay the loan”? he posed. Michael Ojha, chairman of Kalabari union parishad, said farmers in the area will incur a loss of around Tk 25 crore. Bhashkor Chakrabarty, deputy director of DAE in the district, said they identified around 300 hectares of affected land till now, where the fruit on 220 hectares got totally rotten, shattering the dreams of at least 1500 farmers. Deputy commissioner Sheikh Yousuf Harun said he would write to Bangladesh Samabaya Bank and Bangladesh Krishi Bank to get the interest of the loans of the victims exempted and to extend their loan repayment period.
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