Rice varieties that are tolerant of salinity, drought and water submersion – developed by the Bangladesh Rice Research Institute (BRRI) – are yet to gain popularity among the farmers, with agricultural researchers blaming the “slow pace” of the “weak” initiatives by government agencies for the failure.
The BRRI released two saline-tolerant rice varieties named Brri 53 and Brri 54 in 2010, as well as releasing two submersion-tolerant varieties Brri 51 and Brri 52 in the same year.
In 2012, the government-led research organisation released two more varieties named Brri 56 and Brri 57 with the quality of draught-tolerance.
In addition to these six extreme-climate-tolerant rice varieties, the BRRI also released eight more varieties between 2009 and 2013, though most of them also failed to be popular among farmers.
The researchers who developed the varieties have blamed the Bangladesh Agriculture Development Corporation (BADC), the agency that works to distribute seed, for its “slow pace” of seed production and distribution.
Most varieties except the Brri 58, which was produced by cross-breeding the most popular Boro varieties Brri 28 and Brri 29, were yet to reach the farmers because the lack of adequate seeds and its publicity, said Dr Tamal Lata Aditya, chief scientific officer of the BRRI.
She also said the Brri 58 manages to reach farmers, as the BRRI itself had promoted it in the farmers-level in areas surrounding Comilla.
However, Lutful Karim, assistant general manager (seed distribution) of BADC, said the popularity of the extreme-climate varieties was low among the farmers, despite the BADC having adequate stock of such varieties.
According to the BADC, the total seed sales of saline-resilient varieties Brri 53 and Brri 54 were only 7.5 tonnes and 20 tonnes respectively during last Aman season.
In case of drought-tolerant varieties Brri 56 and Brri 57, the total seed sales were 2 tonnes and 2.5 tonnes respectively.
However, the sale of seeds was higher for submerge-tolerant varieties of Brri 51 and Brri 52, with total sale reaching 406 tonnes and 453 tonnes respectively, sources at the BADC said, adding that 17,554 tonnes of Aman seed was sold last year.
Karim also said such low popularity of the climate-tolerant varieties was a result of poor publicity by the Department of Agriculture Extension (DAE), as it was the sole authority to make farmers aware about the new varieties and their specialty.
On the other hand, Rafiqul Hasan, deputy director of the DAE, said they have been running adequate publicity and field-training programme among farmers to introduce every new production. He also said the farmers were yet to receive the new varieties.
Asked why farmers turn their backs on the climate-tolerant varieties, Professor Shamsul Alam, a member of Bangladesh Planning Commission, said farmers opted for varieties that were comfortable to produce, and rejected those that had substandard quality.
As an example, Shamsul Alam, who is also an agriculture economist, said Brri 28 and Brri 29 have been the most popular varieties developed by the BRRI for the last 20 years, because of their farmer-friendly qualities that include more production and less irrigation requirement.
Out of the 55,500 tonnes of Boro seed sold last year, Brri 28 and Brri29 were the most popular varieties, with 25,633 tonnes and 26,555 tonnes sold respectively.
Jiban Krishna Biswas, director general of the BRRI, acknowledged the matter and said the DAE has to gear up its publicity to make the varieties popular.
Regarding the popularity of some specific varieties, he said along with the Boro, only a few other varieties are popular among the Aman farmers, including Brri 11 and Indian variety Swarna.
Jiban Krishna termed the tendency of mono-variety cultivation culture as bad, because it hampered crop diversity and thus increased the tendency of different types of insect attack on crops.