The recent rainfall has become blessings for the farmers of transplanted Aman paddy in the region, particularly in its vast Barind tract, as they are now happy with their standing crop. Local Meteorological Office recorded 81.3 millimeters of rainfall since early hours of Wednesday till 10.30 am of Saturday. It greatly helped the paddy fields protecting from further drying.
Nazrul Islam, Observer of the office, told BSS that there was not a single drop of rainfall in the region since September 21 to October 5 at a stretch.
Mujibur Rahman, Chairman of Gogram Union Parishad under Godagari Upazila in the district, said the adverse situation has pushed the farmers into a great anxiety relating to surviving their rain-fed crop. But, fortunately, the situation changed totally favourable to the farmers as the rainfall saved their crop.
Meanwhile, farmers of the region are now busy in taking care of the transplanted Aman paddy in their field. If such favourable climatic condition prevails, farmers are hoping of a bumper production of the crop. Farmers informed, though the region faced a drought like condition during the planting season, there were sufficient and adequate rainfall later on which helped a smooth growth of Aman plant. Now, farmers were busy for taking care of their fields including eradication of herbs, spraying of insecticides and using of fertilisers. The price of paddy being satisfactory, more farmers cultivated paddy this season and thus surpassing the target by some 48,000 hectares. Zaidur Rahman, a farmer of Karnahar village under Paba upazila informed, he has cultivated Aman on 35 bigha of land. The price of paddy being satisfactory this year, many farmers of the area have increased the amount of Aman cultivation.
Moreover, after sufficient rainfall, there is no need of irrigation in the field.
Agriculturist Monjure Maula informed, farmers are getting a satisfactory price of Aman paddy, so the target of cultivation of Aman has been surpassed the target this season.
According to a source of Department of Agriculture Extension (DAE), the target of Aman cultivation had been set to bring 6,90,141 hectares whereas actually the paddy was cultivated on 7,37,903 hectares of land in the division.
Of those, 7.10 lakh hectares of land were brought under high yielding varieties, 18,389 hectares under local varieties and 9,705 hectares under hybrid varieties.
The DAE here has set a target of producing around 18.67-lakh tonnes of transplanted Aman rice in the region including its vast Barind tract during the current season.
Additional Director of DAE SM Mustafizur Rahman told BSS today that the rice is expected to be produced from around 7.38-lakh hectares of land in the districts of Rajshahi, Naogaon, Chapainawabganj, Natore, Pabna, Sirajgonj, Bogura and Joypurhat.
Bangladesh Agricultural Department Corporation (BADC) and Barind Multipurpose Development Authority (BMDA) supplied quality seed among the growers to achieve a good yield.
Most of the Aman farmers are applying modern methods on their paddy field. DAE officials help them use pesticide and fertilisers properly. Agriculturist Rahman said, “We have provided all sort of necessary agri-inputs among the farmers this season to make the cultivation programme a success.”
He added that BMDA is providing supplementary irrigation if required. In addition, the farmers are keeping thousands of their shallow tube wells ready for supplementary irrigation, he said. Dr Tomal Lota Aditya, director (Research) of Bangladesh Rice Research Institute (BRRI), said BRRI has, so far, developed 41 Aman varieties including 39 inbreeds which are suitable for cultivation in the country. “We have released seven drought tolerant varieties including aromatic one for the Barind area,” she said, adding that some of those have gained popularity among farmers during the last couple of years. She also mentioned that the conventional Parija and Swarna varieties are being replaced by some of the new varieties which are good sign of boosting yield, reports BSS from Rajshahi.
