The government distributed special incentives in terms of Aus rice seed and fertilisers worth Tk 82 lakh 55 thousand among 10,000 farmers of Jashore and Narail districts to enhance Aus rice production this season.
Of them, 5,500 farmers get Aus incentives as seed and fertilisers worth Tk 48 lakh 12,500 in Jashore and 4,500 farmers get Aus incentives worth Tk 34 lakh 42,500 in Narail. Department of Agriculture Extension (DAE) sources confirmed the matter.
The DAE officials said that beneficiary small and marginal farmers are continuing sowing of Aus rice seed and preparing seedbed in full swing after getting Aus rice seed and fertilisers free of costs.
“With the incentives, each beneficiary farmer is cultivating Aus rice on one bigha of land in all eleven upazilas of two districts of the region,” said Md. Emdad Hossain Sheikh, Deputy Director of Jashore of DAE and Chinmoy Roy deputy director of Narail DAE.
They said that distribution of huge Aus rice seed and fertilisers as incentives
along with conducting motivational activities by DAE and other organizations are inspiring farmers in expanding cultivation of less irrigation water consuming Aus rice. “Under special incentive package, each beneficiary farmer got 5 kg high yielding variety Aus rice seed, 15 kg Di-ammonium phosphate (DAP) and 10 kg Murrieta of Potash (MoP) fertilisers to cultivate Aus rice on one bigha of land,” they said.
DAE sources said, during the current season, a target of producing over 53,354 tonnes of clean Aus rice has been fixed from 19,150 heaters of land this season in eight upazilas of Jashore.
Meanwhile, the DAE, Narail has set a target of bringing 9,350 hectares of land under this paddy farming for production of 18,738 metric tonnes of Aus rice in three upazilas of the district.
Additional Deputy Director of DAE, Jashore region Nirmol Kumar Dey told the Bangladesh Post that promoting Aus rice cultivation during the off-season between Boro rice harvest and T-Aman rice seedling transplantation as an additional and substitute crop to costly Boro rice farming could further increase rice output to ensure food security. Aush farming is very much cost effective as it requires less production cost and face less natural calamity. Aush transplantation is progressing fast everywhere in the region at present, he added.
Narail DAE training officer Md. Nazrul Islam said, “We are arranging training and other motivational programmes for the farmers to adopt the cropping pattern to boost agricultural production through the best use of modern technologies to feed the gradually increasing population.”