For years, Latifur Rahman farmed just shrimps on his small plot of land in Khulna’s Paikgachha upazila to earn two square meals a day -- because nothing would grow due to coastal salinity. "Salinity in soil in the coastal areas of the district near the Sundarbans hampered agricultural production in the upazila for many years till we finally found solace in watermelon cultivation in 2019-20," he says. This year, watermelon is being cultivated across 1,400 hectares of land, about 300 hectares more than that of last year. And farmers and the local agriculture officials are both expecting a bumper output, in turn, a windfall profit for the former.  

Israeli researchers have invented a method to utilize watermelons for fuel production, according to the Israeli news website Ynet.