Around 2.51 lakh small and marginal farmers received fertilizers and seeds worth about Taka 8.30 crore free of cost during the current rabi season under government agriculture incentive programme in Rajshahi division.
Additional Director of Department of Agricultural Extension (DAE) Shamsul Wadud here told BSS that incentives were given to the farmers in all eight districts in the division like other parts of the country.
"We are very much satisfied about successful distribution of the rabi crop incentives within due time," he said, adding that the incentives are helping the farmers grow the seasonal crops successfully.
Shamsul Wadud said each of the beneficiary farmers get agri inputs for cultivating crops like winter vegetables, wheat, maize, mustard, sunflower,groundnut, winter onion, mung-bean, lentil and grass pea on one bigha of land each.
In the division, a total of 5,900 farmers got incentives for winter vegetable farming, 68,000 farmers for wheat, 22,050 for maize, 2.07 lakh for mustard, 3,840 for onion, 4,000 for mung-bean, 6,350 for lentil, 1,000 for sunflower, 11,300 for grass pea and 2,000 for groundnut.
To mitigate pressure on water, the marginal farmers were given seeds of various less-water consuming crops like wheat, maize, lentil, grass pea and mustard seed, Wadud said.
The incentive programme is contributing a lot to promoting the water-saving crops in the drought-prone Barind area, he said.
Rafiqul Islam, a marginalized farmer of Fulbari village under Godagari upazila, said he is very happy after getting the incentives in proper time.
"I have sown wheat seed on one bigha of land timely after getting the seed and fertilizer incentives," Islam said, adding that the time prior to 30th November was considered as appropriate period for sowing wheat seed.
Shakhawat Hossain, another farmer of Bijoynagar area under the same upazila, said he has sown onion seed after availing the incentives which has saved him from leaving behind his land abandoned.
Pearul Islam of Bhagail village said many of the farmers have been benefited from the incentives this season as those were distributed in
proper time.
Atanu Sarker, Sub Assistant Agriculture Officer, said all sorts of necessary measures have been adopted to make the farming during the current rabi season successful.
DAE has set a target of producing 4.71 lakh tonnes of wheat from 1.24 lakh hectares of land, 5.59 lakh tonnes of maize from 52,209 hectares of land, 3.70 lakh tonnes of mustard seed from 1.59 lakh hectares of land and 13.37 lakh tonnes of onion from 87,051 hectares of land.
Target has also been set to produce 20.06 lakh tonnes of vegetables from 89,666 hectares of land, 71,249 tonnes of lentil from 47,269 hectares of land and 43,136 tonnes of grass pea from 31,630 hectares of land.
