With financial support from Dutch-Bangla Bank Ltd, the Brac Microfinance Program has initiated a project to provide modern agricultural machinery, seeds, and crop storage facilities free of cost to small-scale farmers in the rural areas.
The agricultural machinery includes combine harvesters, power tillers, threshers, power reapers, seeding and implantation machines, and solar pumps.
The purpose behind this initiative is to tackle disasters, modernise agriculture, increase production, and alleviate the lack of necessary labour.
On Wednesday, Combine Harvester was distributed among local farmers in Madhabpur, Habiganj district.
Arinjoy Dhar, senior director, Md Reaz Uddin, associate director, and Md Belayet Hossan, program head of Brac Microfinance Program, as well as Syed Parvez Mahmud, vice president and Md Zakir Hossain, assistant vice president from Dutch-Bangla Bank were present at the event.
During the event, selected participants were handed the Combine Harvesters. This initiative will enable local farmers to harvest rice more efficiently at a faster pace, protecting their paddy from sudden floods, and other natural calamities. They will also benefit financially by reducing costs and renting out these machineries for rice harvesting to others.
Despite extensive modernisation of agricultural equipment worldwide, their availability in our country's remote areas remains uncertain due to high cost and various constraints. Additionally, there is a shortage of suitable and resilient seeds. Many farmers in rural areas still rely on traditional methods and indigenous machinery for manual labour in crop cultivation. Currently, reduced production is evident due to the shortage of agricultural labour and unexpected disasters. Furthermore, there is a significant lack of appropriate advice and adequate training for farmers in most areas of Bangladesh.
So far, three combine harvesters have been distributed to 150 participants, 80 power tillers to 1,600 participants, 67 threshers to 67 participants, 105 power reapers to 105 participants, and 22 solar pumps to 110 participants.
Additionally, 120 tons of mustard seeds were distributed to 70,813 participants, 14 tons of salt-tolerant rice seeds to 7,500 participants, eight tons of early-ripening rice seeds to 4,500 participants, and 1kg of sunflower seeds to each of 6,400 farmers.
Furthermore, 7,500 participants have received 14 tonnes of salt-tolerant rice seeds. Moreover, 250 people benefited from five micro crop sanctuaries, and 1,000 participants each received fish farming kits.
