The country has had a bumper yield of Ropa (transplant) Aman paddy in the current season to make farmers happy despite a crisis, officials said.
Farmers are very happy to see such a bumper yield of Ropa Aman after overcoming the impact of Cyclone Sitrang. It puts endless smiles and happiness on the faces of the farmers.
Various areas have been visited, and the human eye can see the golden color of ripe rice everywhere. Rice has started ripening in most of the land, so the farmers are busy harvesting.
Farmers in the yard are busy threshing paddy and drying hay. Handfuls of golden gold are scattered in the yard.
Although the crop fields were destroyed by floods last year, the farmers of Teesta Char area are hoping to bring home the expected yield as the incidence of floods is comparatively less this time.
During the current Amon season, Amon paddy has been cultivated in 8,000 hectares of 59 grazing areas of the district.
Among them, many have started cutting paddy in advance and taking it home. Last year they got up to 3 maunds of paddy per bigha, but due to the good yield this year, farmers are dreaming of bringing home up to 12 to 14 maunds of paddy per bigha.
According to the sources of Lakshmipur district agriculture office, the amount of arable land in the district is 1.10 lakh hectares.
In addition, the number of registered farmers is 2.63 lakh and this year, the amount of arable land for Ropa Aman is 80,500 hectares. Among them, 1,000 hectares of Ropa Aman's cropland has been affected by Cyclone Sitrang and the Lakshmi fungus.
The Upazila Agricultural Extension Department at Bhurungamari in Kurigram said that in the current Amon season, despite the target of 16,200 hectares of Amon cultivation, farmers have cultivated paddy in 16,853 hectares of land.
Besides, the target for rice production has been set at 77,000 metric tons.
After visiting different areas of 10 unions of the upazila and talking to the farmers, farmers said that due to the favorable weather conditions, there has been a bumper yield of rice in the current Aman season due to proper care and less disease.
Officials of the Department of Agricultural Extension (DAE) and farmers are expecting a bumper production of Aman rice as its harvest continues now in full swing with excellent yield rate in Rangpur agriculture region.
“Farmers are happy with the highest yield rate of Aman rice in the last ten years in terms of clean grains this time,” Additional Director of the DAE for Rangpur region Agriculturist Mohammad Shah Alam said.
The government has fixed a target of producing 18,07,916 tonnes of Aman rice in terms of clean grains (27,11,874 tonnes of paddy) from 6,15,685 hectares of land for all five districts of Rangpur agriculture region this season.
Despite less rainfall amid a drought-like situation, enthusiastic farmers have cultivated Aman rice on 6,15,981 hectares of land exceeding the fixed farming target by 296 hectares of land.
“Of them, farmers had cultivated short duration varieties of Aman rice on over 94,000 hectares of land and already completed harvest of these varieties with excellent yield rates,” Alam said.
Till Friday, farmers have harvested Aman rice on over two-lakh hectares of land producing 6.04-lakh tonnes of clean rice grains with an excellent average yield rate of 3.02 tonnes per hectare of land.
“We are expecting a super bumper production of Aman rice this season in the region that produces a huge surplus of rice and contributes to ensuring national food security,” he said.
Turning to the issue of boosting agricultural productivity in the wake of global situation, the Planning Minister MA Mannan said that the Prime Minister stressed not only for boosting agricultural production, but also for ensuring production of quality food grains and nutrition enriched crops.
She also asked the concerned ministries to pay attention to the stockpile of food grains in godowns as well as pursuing higher technology in preservation of those as the Netherlands has better technical know-how in this regard.
Touching upon the inflation situation, Mannan said that the overall inflation trend is now downward while the wage index is also on the uptrend. "Although it's not very satisfactory, it's a good sign."
He said the country is likely to witness a good harvest of Aman crops this time which is definitely good news for all side by side. It would also be helpful to boost the supply side to rein in inflation further.
Mannan said that million tons of food grains are in the field much to the delight of the farmers.