RAJSHAHI, April 25, 2020 (BSS) – A total of 60,965 small and marginal farmers get seed and fertilizer as incentives for the cultivation of Aus paddy in the current Kharif-1 season in all eight districts of the division.
The beneficiary farmers are being given five kilograms of high yielding seed, 20 kilograms of diammonium phosphate and 10 kilograms of muriate of potash fertilizers for aush paddy cultivation on one bigha of land each free of cost under the government’s agricultural incentive programme.
Deb Dulal Dhali, Additional Director of Department of Agriculture Extension (DAE), said that the incentives distribution was almost completed successfully everywhere in the region comprising Rajshahi, Natore, Naogaon and Chapainawabgonj districts.
He said the agricultural incentives will help boost aush paddy production as the country’s total production will be enhanced while the government has attached highest priority to the agriculture sector.
Dhali said the aush farming is very much cost effective as it requires less production cost and faces less natural calamity.
“We have set a target to bring the flood-prone and wetland areas in Pabna, Sirajgonj, Bogura and Joypurhat districts under direct seeded rice (DSR) farming this season,” said Kamal Uddin Talukder, Additional Director of DAE (Bogura).
He said they have procured 1,000 kilograms of Brridhan-42 and 43 varieties, which are zinc-enriched and short duration, for distribution among the farmers to attain the production target.
Kamal Uddin said the DSR farming process reduces 45 to 50 percent production cost than the conventional system. “We have found the optimistic result in demonstration plots of Aush paddy in the area,” he added.
Meanwhile, the DAE has set a target to produce 7,38,658 tonnes of aush rice from 2,48,289 hectares of land in all eight districts under Rajshahi division.
On the other hand, some new paddy varieties innovated by Bangladesh Rice Research Institute (BRRI) have opened up a door of enormous prospects in food security along with mitigating the crises of irrigation water in the division.
Dr Shakhawat Hossain, Senior Scientific Officer of Bangladesh Agriculture Research Institute, here said BRRI released seven drought tolerant varieties and some of those have gained popularity among farmers during the last couple of years.
Dr Aminul Islam, Chief Scientific Officer of BRRI, here said the BRRIdhan-48 paddy variety has been gaining popularity among farmers in the Barind tract for the last couple of years.
It has been giving satisfactory yield with scanty rainfall and limited irrigation during the Aush season in the area.
The farmers are seen being interested for cultivating the newly developed variety in the vast Barind tract as part of their effort to adapt with the adverse impacts of climate change.