First national vegetables fair begins

The day is not far when farmers would not need soil to grow vegetables, fruits and flowers in Bangladesh.Instead, they would use only water, solution of nutrients, sponge blocks and cork sheets to yield produce two to three times higher than the usual farming, said AKM Salim Reza Mollik, of Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute (BARI), while explaining Hydroponics yesterday atNational Vegetables Fair and Exhibition 2016, first of its kind in the country.Hydroponics is a method of growing plants in a water-based, nutrient rich solution.Agriculturists at BARI have produced 16 types of vegetables, fruits and flowers, including tomato, capsicum, lettuce, bottle guard, strawberry and marigold, using this method.The produce and the method have been put on display for three days at the fair inaugurated by Agriculture Minister Matia Chowdhury yesterday. The Ministry of Agriculture and the Department ofAgricultural Extension (DAE) organised the programme at AKM Giasuddin Milky Auditorium in the capital's Khamarbari. Hydroponics is important for Bangladesh because arable land here is shrinking. “In that case, you can grow vegetables even in the cities,”said Salim Reza, principal scientific officer at Horticulture Research Centre of BARI.Moreover, the method has no toxic effects and is less prone to pest attacks.