39,200 farmers get incentives for Aush farming in Rajshahi


A total of 39,200 farmers got incentives of seed and fertilizer for the cultivation of Aush paddy on 39,200 bigha of lands in all eight districts under Rajshahi division in the current season.
According to the officials of Department of Agriculture Extension (DAE), most of the beneficiary farmers were given seed of BRRIdhan-48, a drought tolerant paddy variety innovated by Bangladesh Rice Research Institute (BRRI).
Each of the farmers got 15 kg Di-ammonium Phosphate (DAP) fertilizers, 10kg Muriate of Potash (MoP) and 5 kg of Aus seeds.
Deb Dulal Dhali, Additional Director of Department of Agriculture Extension (DAE), said that the distributions of incentives are now on the final stage.
He said the agricultural incentives will help boosting Aush paddy production thereby the country’s total production will be enhanced.
Meanwhile, the DAE has set a target of bringing 2,59,591 hectares of land under this paddy farming for production of 6,98,491 tonnes of paddy. Aush
transplantation is progressing fast everywhere in the region at present.
He said the Aush farming is very much cost effective as it requires lessproduction cost and face less natural calamity.
Talking to BSS today, Dr Aminul Islam, Chief Scientific Officer of BRRI, here says the BRRIdhan-48 paddy variety has been gaining popularity among
farmers in the Barind tract for the last couple of years.
The farmers are seen interesting towards cultivating the newly developed variety in the vast Barind tract as part of their effort to mitigating the adverse impacts of climate change.
The innovated paddy variety has opened up a door of enormous prospects for food security along with mitigating the crises of irrigation water.
To maintain sound soil health, it could be advisable to grow rice especially Brridhan48 using a different system in order to improve compatibility between monsoon rice and upland winter crops.
It has been giving satisfactory yield with scanty rainfall and limited irrigation during the Aush season in the area. This would also go well with a
shift in economic importance of the winter crops over monsoon rice.
“We are arranging training and other motivational programmes for the farmers to adopt the cropping pattern to boost agricultural production
through the best use of modern technologies to feed the gradually increasing population,” he added.
Terming the development of the drought-tolerant variety a demand of the
time, Dr Islam said that the variety has started contributing a lot to ensurefood security.
Sharing their experiences, two female farmers – Nasira Begum and Nadira Begum – told BSS that the BRRI Dhan-48 variety has brought enormous benefit
for them in cultivating rice in drought prone rain-fed environment.
They urged the authorities concerned to remove the existing seed crisis of the variety to encourage more other farmers towards cultivating the variety.
By virtue of early harvesting characteristics the variety supplements the farming of transplanted Aman and various Rabi crops like tomato, brinjal,
mustard and vegetables as the region is conventionally famous for farming these crops abundantly, reports BSS from Rajshahi.