The untimely and incessant rain, caused by the low over the Bay of Bengal for two days, has badly affected the onion growers of the district.
The farmers fear losing crop yields because of the sudden unseasonal rain which damaged most of their seedbeds.
Bashudeb Kundu, a farmer of Malanda village, said, "I have prepared two bighas of land for producing onion this season. But the recent downpour has damaged all my seedbeds."
An official of the Department of Agriculture Extension said a large number of farmers are involved in producing seeds of onion.
Around 10,370 hectares of land have been prepared in the district for producing vegetable seeds, he added. The December rain damaged onion seeds of 330 hectares, the official claimed.
In this situation, many farmers demanded government incentives for restarting onion cultivation.
Jamil Akhter of Kalundi village said he wants to recultivate onion on his land as the recent rain had damaged all his seedbeds of onion. But for this, he now does not have enough money.
"I need money for buying onion seeds. Besides, I need to remove stagnant water from my cropland by using pumps, which is also costly. If the government does not help us, we won't be able to prepare onion seedbeds again" he added.
The price of onion has already marked a sharp rise after the downpour. After visiting Puratan Bazar of Magura town, this correspondent found that onion was being sold at Tk 80 per kilogram, which was Tk 55 three days ago.
Fazlur Rahman, an onion wholesaler of Magura town, admitted that the price of onion had been hiked. For this, he pointed out that the onions that had been kept as kitchen items are now being used for cultivation.
College teacher Mazedul Islam of Khan Para said that the onion market could destabilise further unless the government stands by the growers right now.
When contacted, Magura DAE official Md Mosharraf Hossen acknowledged that the onion farmers in the district had been hit hard by the December rain. He added that they, however, are yet to get any instruction over sanctioning incentives for the onion growers.
