Farmers from areas of the eight northern districts are harvesting four crops a year through a new cropping pattern that ensures food security.
According to sources, change in climate has been noticed in recent years in the country including, temperature fluctuations, devastating floods, cyclones, river erosions, severe droughts and cold waves, causing grave concern among farmers.
Agriculture experts have given importance on proper cropping pattern with effective farming, strategies and technologies as crop production is being seriously hampered due to the adverse impact of climate change.
The programme is being implemented under the supervision of Rangpur Dinajpur Rural Service Bangladesh, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman Agricultural University with financial assistance of Krishi Gobeshona Foundation, sources said.
Under the crops farming pattern, two crops (Aman and Boro paddy) land are being turned into four crops, one through cultivating short duration Aman paddy-mustard, potato-mung bean-parija paddy following the suggestions of field level agriculture officials, farmers said.
A toral of 1,750 bighas of land have been brought under the programme this year and high quality seeds, fertiliser, and other agro inputs were distributed amongst farmers to make the programme a success, said Saiful Islam, assistant agriculture officer of RDRS Bangladesh.
According to the RDRS, 400 farmers from eight northern districts – Lalmonirhat, Kurigram, Gaibandha, Nilphamari, Dinajpur, Panchagarh, Thakugaon and Rangpur – were involved in experimenting with the new cropping pattern which was tested over last couple of years, and become quite popular at farmer’s level.
Nibaron Chandra Roy, a farmer at Sindurmati village in Lalmonirhat sadar, said production of pulses and soyabeans was increasing day by day in the region.
“The cropping pattern also created work opportunities for farm labourers all the year round, including the lean period of Ashwin and Kartik months of Bangla year,” said farmer Jafar Ali at Nayarhat village in Lalmonirhat sadar.
Farmers Rakhal Chandra Roy, Banai Chandra Roy, Abed Ali, and Shafiqul Islam at Mohendranagar village echoed the same opinion.
Hamidul Haque, a farmer of Char Gukunda under Lalmonirhat, said after harvesting a high yielding variety of mustard, he would direct his attention towards mung bean and Parija paddy farming on the same land, thus harvesting four crops from a plot of land in a year.
Agriculture officer of Lalmonirhat sadar upazila Mohammad Nuruzzaman said, considering system productivity, the alternative cropping pattern with four crops in sequence increased the yield by 20.79% and gross return by 76.81%.
