RAJSHAHI, Jan 4, 2020 (BSS) – Around 85,000 tonnes of lentil are likely to
be produced from 60,515 hectares of land in this division during the current
Rabi season, officials said.
Department of Agricultural Extension (DAE) has set the target of producing
55,165 tonnes of lentil from 38,870 hectares of land in four districts of its
Rajshahi Agricultural Zone with production rate of 1.42 tonnes per hectare
while 29,846 tonnes from 21,645 hectares of land in four other districts of
Bogura zone with production ratio of 1.38 tonnes per hectare.
DAE’s Additional Director Deb Dulal Dhali said all possible measures were
adopted to attain the production target of lentil as its newly developed high
yielding varieties are being provided to the farmers.
All the government and non-government entities concerned are motivating the
farmers for farming various water-saving crops including lentil in the Barind
area to lessen the gradually mounting pressure on underground water, he said.
He, however, said pulse farming is increasing gradually in the region
including its vast Barind tract as its cultivation and irrigation cost is
less compared to many other crops especially paddy.
Bangladesh Agriculture Research Institute’s senior scientific officer Dr
Shakhawat Hossain said huge lentil output is possible in the Barind region if
it is cultivated on around 80,000 hectares of land, which usually remains
fallow for more than three months after the harvest of transplanted Aman
paddy every year.
More than 1,500 volunteers are encouraging and inspiring farmers to
cultivate the less water consuming crops through water resource management on
behalf of the ‘Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM)’ Project.
DASCOH Foundation has been implementing the IWRM project in 1,280 drought-
hit villages of 39 Union Parishad and three municipalities in eight upazilas
of Rajshahi, Naogaon and Chapainawabganj districts with financial support of
Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation since 2015.
Farmers have started showing interest in lentil cultivation as they reaped
a lucrative market price of the crop in the last couple of years, said IWRM
Project Coordinator Jahangir Alam Khan said.
“We are cultivating lentil to avoid hassle in getting irrigation water for
paddy,” said Azizul Islam, a farmer of Rajabari village under Godagari
Upazila.
He mentioned that acreage of lentil is increasing day by day.
Islam said he has cultivated lentil on three-bigha of land this year
without spending extra money for irrigation.
A farmer can get four to five maunds of lentil from per bigha of land. One
maund of lentil is now being sold at Tk 4,000 to 4,300 in local markets, he
said.
He further said the growers here are showing more interest in lentil
cultivation as it does not take much irrigation cost. Besides, they got
abundant production in the last few years.
Prof Chowdhury Sarwar Jahan of the Department of Geology and Mining in
Rajshahi University said the farmers in high Barind areas have to spend much
for irrigation in paddy farming, but lentil cultivation needs less
irrigation. So farmers are interesting to cultivate lentil.