BAJAUR: Rabi harvesting has started in Bajaur tribal district as farmers are seen busy in cutting wheat crop in their fields in traditional manner.

The farmers told this scribe that although harvesting season, which usually started between the third week of April and first week of May, was launched in some areas two days before Eidul Fitr.

However, the harvesting of wheat has properly been initiated about two days after Eid festival. Most of farmers were not willing to start harvesting their crop before Eid. They kept their tradition of celebrating the Eid festival for at least six days.

“Although some farmers started harvesting wheat crop few days before Eid but the harvesting was properly initiated on the seventh day of Eid across the district,” said Noor Khan, a farmer from Mamund tehsil.

He said that only few farmers might have started harvesting the crop during the last week of Ramazan. He said that the localities where the harvesting was started before Eid were mainly located in the urban areas of Khar tehsil. He said that in those localities wheat crops usually got ready for cutting about two weeks earlier than rest of the district.

This correspondent noted that in many localities mostly situated in the plain areas like Khar, Mamund, Salarzai and Utmankhel tehsils, the harvesting season was in full swing. The farmers along with their family members and friends were seen busy in cutting of wheat crops through traditional ways.

The growers said that the harvesting process would likely to get further momentum in the next five to seven days.

In many areas of the district, the tradition of ‘Ashar’ is still intact. According to the tradition, people work jointly to cut crops to help each other.

However, most of the farmers feared that yield of wheat would be low than that of previous year as the crops were badly affected due to the unavailability of the required water.

Published in Dawn,May 10th, 2022