Dhaka, Feb 26 (IANS) Bangladesh's Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT), a region currently in the throes of ethnic violence, is fast becoming the country's new home for coffee cultivation.

Farmers are upbeat with satisfactory harvest of coffee this year, The Daily Star reported from Khagrachhari.

While talking to the newspaper, some farmers in Khagrachhari expressed their satisfaction over the production and the price that is higher than that of other crops in CHT.

Farmer Mohammad Nur Hossain from Barpilak village under Ramgarh upazila in the district said he earned Tk 30,000 ($233) from 75 kg of coffee last year.

Nur Hossain, a farmer who got three acres of hilly land from the government at Barpilak village in 1980, raised a coffee plantation on his land as it was not suitable for rice cultivation.

Hossain planted 200 coffee saplings that he got free from CHT Development Board in 1999 to promote coffee cultivation on fallow lands.

The coffee plantation is now paying him back, said Hossain.

Sujon Chakma, a farmer in Babuchhara village in Dighinala upazila, is also very happy with the return from coffee cultivation. He got Tk 20,000 ($290) from 50 kg of coffee.

Both Hossain and Chakma said non-availability of water during the dry season is a major barrier to their farming.

CHT Development Board sources said they have distributed about 20,000 saplings among the rehabilitated farmers in 2001 under the Tk 1288 crore rehabilitation project.

Project Director Shafiqul Islam said the government rehabilitated over 450 families, including 100 Bangalee families on 1,350 acres of government land in eight upazilas in the CHT since 1999.

'Coffee cultivation proved most profitable for the farmers, who got about 1,500 kg of coffee this year,' Shafiqul said.

CHT has witnessed renewed violence between the Buddhist tribals, who are the indigenous people, and the Bengali-speaking Muslim settlers. Six people have died, many injured, hundreds of houses burnt and four places of worship have been vandalised during the violence.