Challenges of Growing Organic Food:
- At present, there is huge demand for organic foods in Bangladesh but it is not widely available. The main problem is organic food production process is more labor intensive since the farmers do not use pesticides chemical fertilizers or drugs.
- Organic farms are smaller than conventional farms which means fixed costs and overhead must be distributed across smaller produce volumes without government subsidies.
Organic Food in Bogra
‘Going Organic’ is the new trend all over the world. More and more people are now taking organic foods and using organic products.
Benefit of Organic food: Food is one of the five basic needs of human beings. Now a days, chemicals are used all over the world to produce crops and process and preserve foods. This increased the availability of food and made foods cheaper but there is a dark side of this achievement. Extensive use of chemicals in the foods has bad effects on human health and it has already started. To combat this problem, the only solution is to switch to organic food meaning foods that are produced without using harmful chemicals. The city of Bogra, produces various types of organic foods such as yogurt, Banana, Rice, Akboria desert, fish and different types of vegetables.
Yogurt: The yogurt of Bogra is famous for its taste and quality all over the country. This yogurt is made in a very clean environment. Yogurt contains vitamin B12, Iodine, zinc and potassium etc. Workers collect cow milk. This milk is then heated up to five hours to destroy bacteria. After the milk is cool, then beneficial bacteria are mixed and kept it for fermentation process. In this way, the whole handmade yogurt is produced.
Akboria ‘Lachcha Shemai’: ‘Akboria Grand hotel’ in Bogra city is famous for its handmade ‘Lachcha Shemai.’ It is very testy, desert and does not contain any harmful chemicals. The making procedure of Lachcha Shemai is very easy. Many People love to eat it because they are made in a healthy environment. That’s reason this food is risk free from many diseases.
Fish cultivation: There are lot of organic fish farms in Bogra district. Kahalu and Sherpur upazilla are the organic fish cultivation area. Some local people dig the pond beside their homestead and cultivate natural fish. They are maintaining simple technique such as using homemade compost. When fisheries owner produce fish by using compost fertilizer its increases the nutrition of fish.
Organic Cotton producing in Bogra: Bogra is also the first region in Bangladesh to produce organic cotton. Since 2008, cotton has been grown in organic manner in Bogra and it has become very successful. Bangladesh Cotton Development Board provided good quality of corn and necessary support. It created new opportunities for the farmers. Instead of using chemical fertilizers, natural compost manure is used. Good quality cloth is make from organic cotton.
Vegetable: There are different kind of organic vegetables in Bogra district i.e. Brinjal, Potato, Pepper, mustard etc. A farmer named Ansar Ali became very successful growing organic vegetables. This successful farmer lives in Bujruk Shokra village. He started organic farming in 2011. That same year, he received award from the government for producing organic crop.
Organic food is the future. If we want to save our future generation and save the environment then we must switch to organic farming and eating organic food.
