BINA Dhan-7, a paddy variety innovated by Bangladesh Institute of Nuclear Agriculture (BINA), has gained popularityamong both farmers and consumers level in the region including its vast barind tract for the last couple of years.The newly innovated paddy variety has opened up a new door of enormous prospects of food security along with mitigating the crises of lean period.
According to the officials concerned, farmers in the region have brought more than 92,000 hectares of land under the variety this year creating a new dimension in the field of paddy farming.
Farmers Shafiqul Islam, Rashed Alamgir and many others here told BSS that they are very happy over farming the paddy variety in the region.
BINA officials are working here for bringing around 3 lakh hectares of land under new variety cultivation within the next five years.
Dr Abul Kalam Azad, Principal Scientific Officer of BINA, said the variety is likely to bring about a revolutionary change in agriculture and the economy of the region. It can also help to make the country self-reliant in food.
He stated that it is a variety of short duration and high yielding paddy and takes 110 to 115 days from cultivation to harvest. As a result, after the harvest of BINA Dhan-7 and before the cultivation of Boro, farmers can grow other crops like potato, mustard, lentil, gram and some early Rabi crops.
Apart from this, taste and flavour of the variety is better and its market price is comparatively higher than many other varieties.
BINA developed the variety in November 2007 and this year farmers have succeeded in cultivating this paddy on 92,000 hectares of land in the region.
Meanwhile, cultivation of this paddy has started in the dry areas like Rajshahi, Chapainawabganj and Naogaon districts.
It has adopted a five-year mega plan for more expansion of the early variety paddy from the next season and if it is implemented successfully, economy of the region would be bolstered.
The initiative has been taken to increase agricultural production and income of marginalised and vulnerable families of the Barind tract byadapting climate adaptive sustainable agricultural technologies, diversifying income generating activities and skill development.
ATM Rafiqul Islam, Deputy Project Manager of Barind Multipurpose Development Authority, said climate change, various natural disasters have
been occurring, are posing a serious threat to food security. So there is no alternative to multiply and intensify cultivation.
Besides, promoting need-based varieties and technologies has become an urgent need to cope with the changed climatic condition to ensure food security of the country’s rising population, he added.
“Early harvest of the paddy has been creating jobs for the farm-labourers also paving way for early farming of vegetables and potatoes on the same land engaging thousands of farm-labourers to earn their wages,” he added, reports BSS from Rajshahi.
