Fair prices cheer growers as harvesting on Farmers in Sherpur are taking delight at the good yield as well as reasonable market prices of Aman paddy Finance as harvesting of the crop is now on in full swing everywhere in the district.
Growers and agriculture officials said good aman harvest was expected this season in the district as weather condition remained favorable, prices of fertiliser and other inputs were relatively low while pest attack did not affect the crop.According to the Department of Agriculture Extension (DAE) office in Sherpur, a target was set to bring 87,393 hectares of land under aman farming in the district this season.But the cultivation acreage exceeded its target as farmers grew paddy on more lands.About 10,86,000 tonnes of paddy and 2,71,500 tonnes of rice are targeted to be produced in the district this year.Expressing happiness over the good output of the crop, farmer Abdul Jalil, 40, of Andarpara village in Nalitabari upazila told the UNB,
“There’s been good production of the crop. We (farmers) are happy.”Echoing the view of Jalil, farmer Sharif Uddin of the same area said, “We (farmers) have got good yield this time. There’s no pest attack.”Asked about the production cost, another farmer Abdur Razzaque, 45, of Baromari village in the same upazila, said, “I cultivated aman on four acres (one acre=30 decimals) of land spending Tk7000-8000 per acre. In return, I got 35-36 maunds (each maund is equivalent to 37.32 kgs) of paddy from each acre.”He said they spent less money for crop farming this year compared to the previous years as prices of fertilisers and agriculture inputs remained low.About the market prices of the newly-harvested paddy, Razzaque said new paddy is being sold at Tk800 per maund and he hoped to get profit of Tk 30,000-32,000 by selling his produce.He added traders and wholesalers are now buying new paddy from their houses.Agronomists said growers sowed high quality aman seeds and got better output of BINA-7, BR-49 and local early variety Basmati Dhan.Local DAE office also played a role in achieving good output through providing farmers with training and necessary instructions, they said.Suvash Chandra Debnath, deputy director of DAE in Sherpur, attributed the good yield of the paddy to favourble weather, availability of
agriculture inputs and the crop fields being free from pest attacks. Mentioning that farmers planted high yielding Ufshi paddy variety on 50,000 hectares of land out of the targeted 87,393 hectares, Suvash Chandra said aman paddy has emerged as blessing for the farmers this year by helping them overcome the seasonal lean period.Harvesting early variety aman, a number of farmers are now preparing their lands for cultivating winter crops, including mustard, to get additional income. -UNB, Sherpur
