Thanks to the quick mobilization of farm machines to the vulnerable haor zone, potentially a huge crop loss could finally be averted bringing in great relief to thousands of farmers in northeast Bangladesh.
In provisional estimates, the recent bout of flash floods damaged standing rice crop in anything between 5,000 to 10,000 hectares of Boro lands in the back swamps of four greater Sylhet districts (Sylhet, Sunamganj, Habiganj and Moulvibazar) and Netrakona, Kishoreganj, and Brahmanbaria.
In this vast swath of wetland ecosystem in the seven districts of northeastern Bangladesh, farmers have been haunted by the memory of 2017 when nearly the entire Boro crop was washed away by a devastating early flash flood, forcing the country to import two million tons of rice from abroad.
Farm officials confirmed to Dhaka Tribune on Monday that additional farm machinery was brought in from neighbouring districts to rescue distressed haor-zone farmers, helping them out in quickly reaping standing rice crop that had by then 80-90% ripened.
It is evident from the available official statistics that up until end-April, threefold more rice has been harvested in the haor belt comparting to what has been harvested in non-haor highlands in those seven districts.
In Bangladesh, dry season Boro contributes 55% of the yearly output of the staple, with Aus and Aman – the two other seasons contributing the rest. Boro grows in over 4.7 million hectares of land all over Bangladesh.
Nearly a million hectares of arable land is available for growing Boro, the only crop cultivated in a year in Haor districts. And it’s almost evenly distributed in Haor areas (0.45 million hectares) and non-Haor areas (0.49 million hectares) in seven districts.
With the proactive move of employing more combined harvesters and reapers in flash flood-vulnerable haor belt, 90% of Boro rice has already been harvested whereas, Boro in only 32% of non-Haor areas have, so far, been harvested.
Haor districts, in total, contribute up to 4 million tons of rice at a national Boro season rice yield rate of four tons per hectare. And nearly half of that comes from haor belt while the other half from non-haor arable lands of the same seven districts.
Statistics provided by the Department of Agricultural Extension (DAE) show, 100% Boro rice in Netrakona Haor lands has been harvested by April 30, followed by 95% in Sunamganj (where crops in several thousand hectares of Boro lands have already been damaged by early April flash floods), 92% in Sylhet, 90% in Habiganj, 88% in Moulvibazar, 80% in Kishoreganj, and 68% in Brahmanbaria.
Officials at the Ministry of Agriculture told Dhaka Tribune that as many as 1,600 combined harvesters and reapers have been employed to harvest rice in haor areas of the seven districts.
Over a third of these machines (577 combined harvesters) have been employed only in Sunamganj, the district where Boro grows aplenty but remains most vulnerable to flash flood-induced crop damages. As many as 300 combined harvesters have been brought into these haor districts from other areas just to expedite the harvesting so that rice is saved from flash floods.
What is needed for a durable remedy?
While farmers lauded agriculture ministry’s proactive role in providing them with machines’ help and help to save the crops, they demand a durable solution to their flash flood vulnerability.
Officials and experts having the knowledge of the crisis said, corruptions run high in proper maintenance of the haor protection dams and as a result, those poorly built and maintained embankments easily give in at the advent of early flash floods.
In 2017, an overwhelming majority of Haor Boro lands were ravaged by flashfloods thanks to the misappropriation of funds meant for embankment maintenance. Amidst the public uproar, an anti-graft body later prosecuted over 60 people, mostly politically-linked embankment project contractors and law enforcers also managed to arrest the alleged top defaulter from Dhaka airport while the latter was trying to escape the country.
In a recent high-level meeting, Planning Minister M A Mannan, who comes from Sunamganj district, made it a strong case to give proper haor protection a top priority and make sure crop-saving projects are carried out properly.
In reference to road infrastructures built on a Kishoreganj haor, the meeting also made it a point that no such roads should be conceived where water retention capacity and free-flow of haor waters are compromised.
Experts also emphasized the allocation of budget at the right time so that haor embankments are built and maintained properly by end-February before the danger of flash floods looms. Typically, the government gives a mandate to grassroots administration to complete the tasks by February but ever it’s done by that timeframe and then time extension goes on making the crops vulnerable to flash flood damage.