Farmers here have started harvesting Irri-boro paddy amid festivity with a hope of good yield. At present, most of farming fields have taken an eye-catching look as early varieties of paddy are now in ripening stages.
“BRRIDhan-28 and local ‘Zira’ varieties are being harvested now,” Dr Aminul Islam, Chief Scientific Officer of Bangladesh Rice Research Institute (BRRI), told BSS today.
Harvesting of other varieties is expected to begin at the end of this month, he added. “We have provided more than 10 high yielding varieties to the farmers to boost production,” Islam said.
Modern farming technologies and knowledge are being disseminated to the farmers through various programmes including 32 field demonstrations with bringing 360 farmers under need-based training to enhance rice production, he added.
Farmers cultivated boro paddy on around 8.30 lakh hectares of land, exceeding the target set by Department of Agriculture Extension (DAE) in eight districts under Rajshahi division during the current season, a local DAE official said.
“We had fixed the target of bringing around 8.11 lakh hectares of land
under boro farming but the growers cultivated it on 8.30 lakh hectares of
land, creating scopes of producing 33.93 lakh tonnes of rice in the
division,” said Dev Dulal Dhali, Additional Director of DAE.
He said the prevailing suitable weather made the paddy farmers optimistic
for getting good yield of boro paddy as steps had been taken to ensure smooth
Boro rice cultivation this season.
Talking to BSS, Nurul Amin Siddiqui, 48, a farmer of Karnahar village under
Paba upazila, said he has cultivated the paddy on three bighas of land.
He expressed his satisfaction that his early variety paddy is about to ripen, hoping a good yield as the weather remains, so far, favourable. Other farmers in the region echoed Siddiqui, saying advanced varieties of paddy are now being harvested.
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Abdullah Heel Kafi, regional agriculture information officer, said the DAE
and other agriculture-related organisations, Power Development Board and
Rural Electrification Board ensured smooth supply of seed, fertilizers and
electricity to the farmers to boost boro production.
He said the farmers have started using modern agriculture technologies in
farming Boro paddy to increase its output, reducing usage of underground
water and saving electricity.
He said the farmers were also imparted training on how to adopt conservation agriculture technologies like Alternate Drying and Wetting irrigation method at large scale.
