Farmers are expecting a bumper production of Aman rice this season as harvest of the major cereal crop continues in full swing with excellent yield rate making them happy in Rangpur agriculture region.
Officials of the Department of Agricultural Extension (DAE) said a bumper production of Aman rice will contribute to ensuring national food security despite less rainfall during the seedling transplantation period amid the global crises caused by the Russia-Ukraine War.
“Farmers are getting an excellent average yield rate of 3.13 tonnes of clean Aman rice per hectare of land,” said Additional Director of the Department of Agricultural Extension (DAE) for Rangpur region Agriculturist Md. Aftab Hossain.
Braving a drought-like situation during the seedling transplantation period, farmers exceeded the fixed farming target of Aman rice in all five districts of the region.
Earlier, the government through the DAE had fixed a target of producing 18,68,032 tonnes of clean Aman rice (28,02,048 tonnes of paddy) from 6,14,400 hectares of land this season for the region.
“Enthusiastic farmers have finally brought 6,16,962 hectares of land under Aman rice cultivation exceeding the fixed farming target by 0.42 percent despite the drought-like situation during the seedling transplantation period in the region,” Hossain said.
Till Thursday, farmers have harvested Aman rice in 2,07,494 hectares of land producing 6,91,034 tonnes of clean rice grains with an excellent average yield rate of 3.13 tonnes per hectare of land.
“We are expecting a bumper production of Aman rice this season in the region that produces a huge surplus of rice and contributes to ensuring national food security,” Agriculturist Hossain said.
Meanwhile, early harvest of short duration Aman rice created huge jobs for farm-labourers like in the previous years helping them in tackling the ‘seasonal lean period’ of ‘Aswin’ and ‘Kartik’ months this season.
“Despite the prevailing global crises and price hike of essential commodities, short duration Aman rice harvest helped farmers and farm-
laborers in tackling the ‘seasonal lean period’ that has already disappeared almost 15 years back,” he said.
Earlier, a poverty-like situation was being created for lack of agricultural activities during the months of ‘Aswin’ and ‘Kartik’ causing untold miseries to the poor and farm-labourers even 15 years ago in the greater Rangpur region.
After visiting Aman rice fields in different rural areas of Rangpur region in recent days, Agriculturist Hossain said tender Aman rice plants got ample sunlight to grow superbly despite less rainfall resulting in excellent output of the crop.
Farmers are currently getting 4.50 to 6.00 tonnes of Aman rice in terms of paddy per hectare of land from harvesting the crop in five districts of Rangpur agriculture region.
“After harvesting short duration varieties of Aman rice, farmers are sowing seeds of early variety potato, winter vegetables and other Rabi crops on the same land creating huge farm activities and jobs for farm-labourers and increasing crop intensity,” he added.
Farmers Echhahaq Ali, Monirul Haque, Manik Mian and Golam Mostafa of different villages in Rangpur said they have cultivated variety of Aman rice in their croplands mostly using irrigated underground water this season.
“As harvest of the crop continues in full swing now, we are expecting high yield rates of the crop between 40 and 55 mounds (every 40-kg is one mound) per acre of land this season,” said farmer Ariful Haque of village Najirdigar in Rangpur Sadar upazila.
Similarly, farmers Lokman Hossain, Nur Mohammad, Solaiman Ali and Nurul Alam of different villages under various upazilas of Rangpur said that they are very happy getting excellent yield rates from harvesting their cultivated Aman rice crop this season.
