Moshiur Rahman Feroz, Satkhira
Aus and Aman paddy sapling planting festival is going on in Satkhira district ignoring the heavy sun and rain of Shravan month.
The work of planting paddy in the current Aus-Aman season is almost at the final stage. Farmers are busy taking care of Aus paddy.
This year, the field-wide farmers of the area have started cultivating different varieties of paddy, Ufshi varieties - 71, 49, 30, 80, 76, 78 and 72 without paddy - 7, 11, 16, 17 and 20 BR - 10, 22, 23 and 28 other indigenous and hybrid varieties. Farmers work tirelessly to produce Aus and Aman paddy by applying fertilizers and pesticides.
Badal Chandra Biswas, Deputy Director, Satkhira Agriculture Extension Department, said that the target for cultivation in Satkhira district during the 2019/2020 Aus and 2020/21 Aman seasons has been set at 89,550 hectares and 48660 hectares of land has already been acquired in Aus.
Farmers are planting Aman paddy saplings with great enthusiasm. We hope that the specified target of planting will be achieved ahead of time. The production target has been set at 2,54,748 MT of rice.
In the meantime, the farmers are spending their time in intensive monitoring through the application of fertilizer and pesticides after planting the aus paddy seedlings.
So far, 55,711 MT in 19,650 hectares of land in Satkhira Sadar, 24,044 MT in 8,870 hectares of land in Tala, 50,184 MT in 17,500 hectares of land in Kaliganj and 33,866 MT in 11,800 hectares of land in Kalaroa. In Shyamnagar, 48,099 MT of 16,850 hectares of land and in Asashuni Upazila, 9,500 hectares of land, 27,059 MT of Aus and Aman are being planted with lakhs of acres of paddy.
Farmers will get 19 to 20 maund of paddy per bigha at the cost of Tk 11,000 per bigha and 21 to 22 maund of paddy per acre at the cost of Tk 10,000 per acre this season. He added that if there is no major natural disaster, the production target will be exceeded.
