Farmers in Rangpur region have harvested over 61% of their Boro paddy, creating high hopes of ensuring food security amid the Covid-19 pandemic.
Officials of the Department of Agricultural Extension (DAE) said the farmers have already completed the harvest of Boro rice with a superb average yield rate of 4.22 tons of clean rice per hectare of land.
The farmers are happy with the excellent yield of Boro rice and are well on their way to achieving a bumper production as harvest continues in full swing in the region.
A number of farmers expressed happiness over the official Boro paddy and rice procurement campaign at Tk 26 per kg for paddy, Tk 36 at per kg for boiled rice and Tk 35 per kg for non-boiled (atap) rice.
The DAE officials said a target of producing 21.76-lakh tons of clean Boro rice (32.64-lakh tons of paddy) was fixed from 5.03 lakh hectares of land for all five districts in Rangpur region during this Robi season.
However, the farmers finally cultivated the crop on five lakh hectares of land with a shortfall of only 3,080 hectares of land, or around 0.39% than the fixed farming target.
“The Super Cyclonic Storm Amphan caused water-logging on 1,093 hectares of Boro-planted land in the region with only partial damage,” said Additional Director of the DAE for Rangpur region Agriculturist Muhammad Ali.
Meanwhile, the farmers have already harvested Boro rice on over 3.09 hectares of land, producing 13.05 tons of clean rice with an excellent average yield rate of 4.22 tons per hectare.
“The farmers are expecting to achieve a bumper production of Boro rice despite a little shortfall in the farming target. More than 1.82 lakh farm-labourers are engaged in harvesting the crop to earn their daily wages,” Ali said.
Farmers Mohsin Ali, Aiyub Ali, Zaved Ali, Helal Mian, Ekramul Haque, Ariful Haque Batul and Manik Miah, all from different villages of Rangpur, said they have cultivated Boro rice on two to five acres of land each this season.
They have already completed harvest on 70% of their cropland and got a bumper output of Boro.
“I have cultivated Boro rice on 3.50 acres of land and completed harvest on three acres with excellent yield rate,” said farmer Ariful Haque Batul of village Najirdigar in Rangpur Sadar.
He hoped to complete the harvesting process within the next couple of weeks and get 85 mounds of Boro crop on an average in terms of paddy per acre of land.
Currently, the farmers are utilizing 125 combined harvester machines for harvesting Boro paddy of one acre of land using one machine in an hour spending Tk 3,000 against Tk6,000 for the same purpose by engaging labourers.
“The government, through the DAE, has distributed combined harvester machines among the farmers at Tk 14 lakh per unit against the real price of Tk 28 lakh at 50% subsidized rates,” said Additional Director of the DAE for Rangpur region Agriculturist Muhammad Ali.
Besides, the farmers are easily harvesting Boro rice using 240 reaper machines to overcome the shortage of farm-labourers and complete harvesting the crop on time.
“The field level officials and experts of the DAE and other agriculture-related organizations extended assistance to the farmers and provided latest technologies to make the Boro rice cultivation program a success,” he added.