RANGPUR, Nov 11, 2020 (BSS) – Harvesting of Aman rice has got full momentum making farmers busy and happier with excellent market price of the crop and creating huge jobs for farm-labourers in Rangpur agriculture region.
Officials of the Department of Agricultural Extension (DAE) said farmers harvested Aman rice on 99,085 hectares of land till Tuesday against total standing crop on 5.98 lakh hectares of land as recent floods caused huge damages to the crop.
“Farmers have already produced 3.03 lakh tonnes of clean Aman rice (4.54 lakh tonnes of paddy) with an average yield rate of 3.06 tonnes of clean rice per hectare,” said Acting Additional Director of the DAE at its regional office Agriculturist Md. Moniruzzaman.
The recent floods in three phases damaged various standing crops on 42,055 hectares of land causing production losses of 1,49,416 tonnes of crops worth Taka 499.16 crore this year affecting 4,49,285 farmers in Rangpur agriculture region.
“The floods damaged the growing Aman rice crop on 24,886 hectares of land causing production losses of 70,230 tonnes of rice worth Taka 253 crore and affecting 2,29,209 farmers in the region,” Moniruzzaman said.
Besides, the floods damaged seedbeds of Aman rice on 1,195.87 hectares of land causing losses to seedlings worth Taka 15.95 crore affecting 38,705 farmers in all five districts of the region.
Earlier, the DAE had fixed a target of producing 16,97,795 tonnes of clean Aman rice (25,46,693 tonnes of paddy) from 6,05,140 hectares of land for all five districts in the region.
To recoup the crop losses, the government implemented massive agri-rehabilitation programmes spending Taka 1.42 crore assisting 14,743 flood-hit farmers to make Aman rice farming programme a success this season.
Talking to BSS, farmer Ariful Haque Batul of village Najirdigar in Rangpur said he has cultivated flood-tolerant varieties of Aman rice like BRRI dhan51, BRRI dhan52 and BINA dhan12 on seven acres of land.
“The growing Aman rice plants were inundated twice under flood water this season,” he said, adding that he has already harvested the crop on one acre of land and got 22 mounds (every 40 kg=one mound) of paddy against expected 45 mounds of the crop per acre.
However, farmers in other areas where recent floods did not submerge their growing Aman rice plants are getting excellent output this season.
Farmers Ayub Ali, Echhahaq Ali, Anisul Haque and Dulal Chandra of different villages in Sadar, Badarganj and Taraganj upazilas of Rangpur said that they got excellent yield rates from their just harvested Aman rice crop.
They expressed happiness over the current excellent market price of newly harvested Aman paddy between Taka 1,100 and 1,200 per mound.
Agriculturist Moniruzzaman said farmers are hopeful to achieve an excellent Aman rice output as its harvest continues in full swing with better yield rates in most areas in the region.
After completing harvest of short duration varieties of Aman rice, farmers are sowing seeds of early varieties of potato, winter vegetables and other Rabi crops now on the same land to reap more profits.
“Meanwhile, harvest of Aman rice with cultivation of Rabi crops on the same land has created huge jobs for farm-labourers helping them to overcome the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic situation in the region,” Moniruzzaman added.