A total of 90,600 small and marginal farmers get seed and fertilizer as incentives worth around Taka 7.08 crore for the cultivation of Aush 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.
Khayer Uddin Mollah, Zonal Deputy Director of Department of Agriculture Extension (DAE), said that the incentives distribution was almost completed successfully everywhere in the division.
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. Khayer Mollah said the Aush farming is very much cost effective as it requires less production cost and faces less natural calamity.
Target has also been set to bring 62,003 hectares of land under direct seeded Aman paddy in the division this season, he added. Brridhan-42 and 43 varieties, which are zinc-enriched and short duration, will be used for the farming to attain the production target.Direct seeded farming processes reduce 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.
"We have already completed the incentive distribution activities in Godagari upazila," said Atanu Sarker, Sub Assistant Agriculture Officer. Meanwhile, the DAE has set a target to produce 6,76,458 tonnes of Aush rice from 2,22,485 hectares of land in all eight districts in the division.Target has also been set to grow seedlings on 11,254 hectares of land to make the transplantation process a total success. In many areas, the farmers have started transplanting Aush paddy and the advanced varieties in particular. 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.
Ahad Ali, 35, a farmer of Ishwaripur village under Godagari upazila, received the incentives expressing his gratitude to the government for standing beside them. Another marginal farmer Muhammad Karim, 47, of Fulbari village is now happy after getting the incentives.
