A sudden hailstorm on the night of 6 October caused widespread damage in Shyamkur and Swaruppur unions and nearby areas of Maheshpur upazila in Jhenaidah. In only a few minutes of storm and hail, farmers’ crops were all but flattened.
In village after village the storm brought bean trellises crashing to the ground and uprooted or broke gourd trellises. In places whole vegetable fields were destroyed. Fields of beans, yardlong beans, bottle gourd and other vegetables grown with the mulching method were badly damaged.
Many farmers had carefully built trellises on their land with bamboo, netting and other materials. The vegetables growing on them had begun to bring smiles to the farmers’ faces. But countless farmers now face losses after the night’s storm and hail brought the trellises down.
It was not only vegetables: paddy fields were not spared either. In many areas ripe and half-ripe paddy plants were bent to the ground by the storm, and in places whole paddy fields were flattened. Paddy growers also fear heavy losses.
Banana orchards and other crops were badly damaged as well. Many banana plants were broken or uprooted by the storm, and the hail damaged the leaves, flowers and fruit of various crops.
Farmers said they had invested large sums of money and labour in their land this season in the hope of a good harvest. Some had borrowed to buy seed, fertiliser, pesticide, bamboo, netting and materials for trellises. They had dreamed of recovering that investment by selling the crop and of meeting their families’ needs. One night of storm and hail has largely shattered that dream.
Local farmers are calling for the affected areas to be visited quickly, for the agriculture department to draw up an accurate list of the damage, and for support for the affected farmers. They say small and marginal farmers in particular would have a chance to recover if they were given government assistance, incentives and farm loans on easy terms.
Maheshpur upazila agriculture officer Yasmin Sultana said the storm and hail had caused widespread crop damage in Shyamkur and Swaruppur unions.
Farmers have no control over nature. When a farmer who has raised a crop with his own sweat, labour and money is waiting to bring the golden harvest home, a natural disaster like this is very hard to bear.
বাংলায় মূল প্রতিবেদন পড়ুন · Read the original Bengali report