Govt to give incentive for summer onion production

Staff Reporter :
Summer onion producers will be provided with more government incentives, Agriculture Secretary Wahida Akter said yesterday.

The Agriculture Secretary also informed that the government is now emphasizing production of summer onion to achieve self-sufficiency in onion production.

“We are providing the growers with seeds and fertilizer free of cost to popularize summer onion farming. We have already started getting benefits of extending the free seeds.”

More incentive will be disbursed to increase summer onion production from the next year and it will help the government meet onion demand in the local market also, she said.

The secretary made the comments while exchanging views with the farmers on summer onion production, at Isakhali village under Meherpur district, the agricultural ministry said in a statement.

The agriculture ministry has been distributing free seeds and fertilizers as incentives to the farmers for the last few years to increase summer onion production.

The government has so far given over Tk 32 crore as incentives in this regard.

The Department of Agricultural Extension (DAE) targets bringing 5,000 hectares under summer onion cultivation to produce 51,000 tonnes of the vegetable, said Md Rabiul Hoque Mazumder, additional director of crops wing at the DAE.

Thanks to the incentives, 39,000 tonnes of summer onions were produced in 2022-23 fiscal year and 37,000 tonnes in the previous year, according to the statement.