KHYBER: Under close supervision by the agriculture department and with additional efforts of farmers, sunflower cultivation in Bara and Jamrud tehsils here is showing promising results amid hopes for a bumper crop this year.

Officials of the agriculture department told Dawn that this year sunflower was grown on 300 acres in two clusters, including Malagori in Jamrud and Akkakhel and Sipah areas in Bara.

They said besides free distribution of sunflower seeds to selected farmers, many of them also opted for cultivating the prized crop of sunflower on their land on their own.

Farmers in both Bara and Jamrud appreciated distribution of official support and provision of quality seeds for sunflower cultivation.

Growers appreciate official support, provision of quality seeds

Irshad Ali Malagori, president of Jamrud Farmers Services Centre, told Dawn that field staff of the agriculture department regularly visited their sunflower fields and offered timely advice on pest control.

He said 40 registered farmers from Malagori area were provided with free sunflower seeds with a packet of two kilogrammes each for two acres of land.

“Most growers have switched over to sunflower cultivation due to its lucrative economic productivity and timely assistance from the agriculture department,” he said.

Mr Malagori added that in the past, farmers grew wheat, maize and vegetables.

Rabnawaz, a farmer from Akkakhel area of Bara, said permanent focus on the cultivation of sunflower would help drastically reduce the farmers’ reliance on poppy cultivation as the region was traditionally considered a bastion of poppy and hashish cultivation in the recent past.

Expressing satisfaction with the provision of quality sunflower seeds to farmers and continued assistance by the agriculture department, he hoped that the sunflower crop would largely address their financial issues and could prove a good alternative to the banned poppy crop.

Abdul Wali of Yousaf Talab area in Bara told Dawn that he was eagerly looking for a profitable crop as he worked extremely hard for over two years to level his ancestral farmlands and remove all wild plants and bushes from it soon after his family returned to Bara in 2017.

“With meagre financial resources, I opted for cultivating wheat, corn and vegetable until 2022 as most farmers in Bara had no previous experience and adequate knowledge of cultivating sunflower on their fields.

“Now, its second year in running that I cultivate sunflowers on my fields with the agriculture department providing us free seeds and complete assistance in the proper look after of our crop,” he said.

He added that almost 70 per cent of the local farmers had switched over to sunflower cultivation.

However, Abdul Wali, along with Irshad Ali, Rabnawaz and other farmers, who had sunflower cultivated on their farmlands, demanded installation of sunflower oil extraction machines, ganrrai in local language, in Bara and Jamrud to avoid the cost of transporting their crop to Peshawar for the purpose.

They also demanded training courses for farmers for better sunflower cultivation.

Abid Shah of the agriculture department told Dawn that extra attention was being paid to sunflower cultivation in the district.

He said the department had always proposed preferential treatment for sunflower crops at governmental and non-governmental forums.

He said cooking oil was the country’s second largest import, so better sunflower production could help cut reliance on imported edible oil.

The official said if sunflower crops were properly managed in the district, their annual yield could meet the cooking oil demand in at least three other districts of the province.

He said sunflower seeds were so expensive that most farmers here couldn’t afford them, so the department started distributing them free of charge under the USAID Economic Recovery Development and Activity programme.

Published in Dawn, August 25th, 2024