Farmers in the vast Barind tract needed more drought-tolerant and short-duration varieties of paddy seed to bring diversity in the farming system, speakers
at a daylong seminar said.They viewed the drought situation has been exposed in the barind tract comprising 25 upazilas of Rajshahi, Naogaon and Chapainawabgonj districts due to the adverse impact of climate
change.
The declining rainfall coupled with the enhanced temperature due to adverse impact of the climate change has put the agriculture sector at a vulnerable condition.
So, 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 gradually rising population, they added.
The observations came at a daylong seminar styled “Promotion of Drought Tolerant Paddy Varieties” held at the conference hall of Jafar Imam Tennis Complex in Rajshahi metropolis on Saturday.
Bangladesh Agriculture Development Corporation (BADC) organized the seminar to collect opinion from the experts, researchers and other stakeholders on how to expedite the distribution of drought tolerant paddy varieties among the growers level.
During his keynote presentation, Dr Abdul Kader, Senior Scientific Officer of Bangladesh Rice Research Institute, says the BADC has started distributing BRRI 42, 43, 57 and 58 paddy varieties. The farmers in the drought-prone barind area are cultivating those which are fit for the dried area.
Six more varieties are now being examined and are likely to be released among the growers level very soon. He hoped that the upcoming entries would be more drought tolerant and higher yielder than the present varieties.
He said the varieties give satisfactory yield with scanty rainfall without any irrigation during the rain-fed transplanted Aman season in the area.
Dr Kader told the seminar that these varieties would bring enormous benefit for them to cultivate rice in drought prone rain-fed environment.
He indicated that less disease and insect infestation was found in the potential drought tolerant genotypes.
With Azizul Haque, Director General of BADC (Seed), in the chair, Shahriar Kader Siddique, Deputy Secretary of Ministry of Agriculture, Ekramul Haque, Deputy Director of Department of Agriculture Extension (DAE), Lutful Karim Abdullah Al Faruque,
Deputy Director of BADC, and Seed Specialist Dr Nazmul Huda spoke on the occasion, among others.
DG Azizul Haque termed the development of the drought- tolerant varieties as the demand of time and expected that the new varieties would contribute a lot to ensure food security.
He hoped that the varieties would bring a positive result for around 2 million hectares of land in the rain-fed drought prone area alongside playing a vital role in boosting rice yield in the days ahead.
By virtue of early harvesting characteristics the varieties supplement the farming of various rabi crops like potato, mustard and vegetables as the region is conventionally famous for farming
of those massively.In the technical session, Joint Director of BADC, and Dr Motaleb Hossain, Metropolitan Agriculture Officer, also presented research papers on various issues of drought tolerant paddy arieties and its field level expansion.
(BSS, Rajshahi)
