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Madhusaulmari farmer an inspiration to many

By AMBUNATH SHARMA

GAURIPUR, June 16 - A number of farmers of Madhusaulmari Pt. I village in Dhubri district cultivate long-podded beans on a large scale for their livelihood and have been doing so for the last 15 years. Among them, Abdul Rahman, son of Abdul Hamid, is a progressive cultivator and an ideal farmer of the locality.

This year, he sowed seeds of long-podded beans in one bigha of land. He purchased seeds at Rs 60 per kg and sowed them. In six to seven days, the seeds began to sprout. Generally, he sows seeds in the middle part of the March and one and a half month later, the saplings begin to flower. He can pluck the mature bean in the last part of April.

Abdul Rahman applied cowdung as the only manure in his field and therefore the demand of the bean is very high. This year he earned about 30,000 from his farm.

He told this correspondent that his input cost this year was Rs 14000 and his production stood at nearly 100 quintals. He sold the produce at Rs 30 per kg in the local market.

The long-podded bean, also known as the Asparagus bean ( scientific name Vigna Unguiculata) is a legume cultivated for its edible green pods containing immature seeds, like green bean. It is also known as the Yardlong bean, long-podded cowpea, Chinese long bean etc. Despite the common name of Yardlong, the pods are actually only about half a yard long. Generally, the length of the bean is 35 cm to 75 cm ( 1.15 to 2.46 ft).

The demand of the long-podded bean in the market is high because it provides average amount of minerals such as iron, copper, manganese, calcium, magnesium etc., and is said to be very useful.

But Rahman is unhappy. He lamented that even after so many years of his single-handed efforts, not a single officer of the Department of Agriculture came to help him in his endeavour. He has a plan to extend his farming, but no one is there to help him in the technical aspects and therefore he is adopting only the traditional method of cultivation, as a result of which, the production remains limited. If the farmers of the area are trained with all methods of scientific cultivation, it can easily be opined that there will be green revolution in the greater part of the area in the near future and the farmers will become self-sufficient.

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