The farmers have produced a record quantity of over 51.71 tonnes Transplanted Aman (T-Aman) rice exceeding the fixed production target by 5.64 lakh tonnes this season in the northern region, official sources said. According to the Department of Agriculture Extension (DAE) sources, the government had fixed a target of producing 46.07 lakh tonnes Aman rice from 17.46 lakh hectares land and farmers have cultivated the crop in 18.18 lakh hectares exceeding the fixed farming target by 72,000 hectares or 4.12 per cent during the just ended season.
The farmers have already completed harvest of the crop on 18.18 lakh hectares land and produced over 51.71 lakh tonnes rice, which is higher by 5.64 lakh tonne or 12.24 percent than the fixed production target of 46.07 lakh tonnes Aman rice this season.
Horticulture Specialist of DAE Khandker Md Mezbahul Islam told BSS that the farmers achieved the record Aman rice production this season after exceeding the fixed farming target, getting excellent yield rates and no incident of pest attacks in crop fields.
The farmers got an average yield of over 2.84 tonnes rice per hectare against the fixed average yield rate of 2.63 tonnes rice per hectare, higher by 0.21 tonnes per hectare than the fixed target, this time to get the super bumper production, he added. According to the DAE sources, the farmers have produced 58,910 tonnes hybrid variety Aman rice from 17,654 hectares land, 49.19 lakh tonnes high yielding variety rice from 16.85 lakh hectares and 1.93 lakh tonnes local variety Aman rice from 1.14 lakh hectares land in the region.
The achieved Aman yield rates in terms of clean rice stood at 3.3369 tonnes per hectare for hybrid variety, 2.9178 tonnes for high yielding variety and 1.6919 tonnes per hectare for the local variety Aman this season.
Talking to the national news agency, farmers Abdul Haque, Sukanto Barman, Habibur Rahman, Beauty Begum and Akhil Chandra said they have already completed harvesting their Aman crop and got excellent yield rates with better market price this season. Officials of the DAE, Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics and NGOs, local public representatives took part in thousands of sample Aman crop cutting ceremonies everywhere in the northern districts this season, the DAE sources said.
Additional Director of DAE Sikander Ali said that the farmers have achieved bumper Aman rice production with excellent yield rates this time following favourable climate and various effective steps taken by the government.
The farmers are also happy this time getting better market price of Aman crop and they have now put maximum efforts in making the Boro cultivation programme successful in the food surplus region, generally known as the food granary of country, he added.
It may be mentioned here that the farmers produced 48.86 lakh tonnes T-Aman rice from 18.15 lakh hectares land last year against the fixed target of producing 46.26 lakh tonnes rice from 17.64 lakh hectares land in the northern region. -BSS, Rangpur
