Abu Zafar Ahmed, a farmer of Mohanpur village in Godagari upazila of Rajshahi, has been cultivating guava on eight bighas of land for the last couple of years.
 He had to arrange irrigation to the orchard regularly through a pump by burning 50-60 litres of diesel per week as there was no deep tube well. In order to curtail his excessive irrigation cost Ahmed installed a solar power-dependent drip irrigation technology in his guava orchard with financial support from the recently phase-out Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM) project.
 At present, there is no irrigation cost, but previously, he had to spend Tk15,000 per month on average for only irrigation purposes.
The IWRM project provided 80% and he spent the rest 20% of the Tk5.5 lakh scheme. Not only Ahmed’s orchard, four other drip units were commissioned in other areas irrigating more than 40 bighas of farmlands. Shafiul Islam Mukta, a resident of Godagari upazila said, has developed three dragon orchards on 52 bighas of land in Gogram and Matikata areas.
Relating to the production cost, he said around Tk2.60 lakh is required for dragon farming on one bigha of land. Different types of modern and cost-effective irrigation technologies are being promoted in the region including its vast Barind tract, in order to reduce the gradual mounting cost for irrigation besides boosting soil productivity.