Farmers across the country are hopingto get a bumper production of paddy amidthe current corona crisis.
Students, teachers, local representatives,ruling party activists including Awami League backed parliamentarians have also joined hands with the poor farmers in harvesting paddy in most of the areas of the country, said local sources.
Some senior government officials, including deputy commissioners in greater Sylhet division have also participated in harvesting paddy in the Haors.
According to agriculture experts, food reserve for the nation depends on the completions of harvesting timely boro paddy.
Agriculture Minister DrAbdurRazzaque said, “We have completed harvesting 10 percent of the paddy in haor areas while it is about 20 percent in the rest of the areas.”He however hoped that all the boro paddy will be harvested by June.
Dr Mohammad Harun-ur-Rashid of Bangladesh Agricultural University said, “After completing harvesting the paddy, the government should strictly monitor to ensure that the farmers get fair prices of paddy.”
Another agriculture expert said, “If farmers can successfully harvest the remaining crops, there should be no food crisis in the next two years.”He made the prediction based on the stock of one year’s rice.
Earlier in the first week of April, the Agriculture Ministry had sent out directivesto all its field officials to ensure smooth the movements of seasonal labourers so that they can engage in paddy harvesting.
After the instructions, huge numbers of seasonal laboours moved different parts to participate in paddy harvesting.
Law enforcing agencies also provided their assistance after verifying identities and actual reasons of the movement during the shutdown.
Government officials said agriculture ministry has provided 180 combine harvesters and 137 reaper machines for harvesting Boro paddy at seven haor districts.
Now, a total of 362 combine harvesters and 1056 reapers are operational at haor areas under the ministry supervision. Besides, a total of 220 combine harvesters and 487 reapers are undergoing maintenance.
Agriculture secretary MdNasiruddin said, “ We have allocated the agricultural equipment for an emergency basis to ensure smooth harvesting the paddy in haor areas.”
The ministry of agriculture is providing Tk one billion as subsidy to farmers for procurement of agricultural equipment.
Director-general of Department of Agriculture Extension Dr Mohammad Abdul Muyeed said, “Boro paddy has been cultivated on 445,399 hectares of wetlands across seven districts of Kishoreganj, Netrokona, Sunamganj, Moulvibazar, Habiganj, Sylhet and Brahmanbaria. This year’s target for Boro rice production is 20.4 million tonnes, with the yields from the Haor regions making up 20 percent of it.”
