The New Nation - Internet Edition

THIS year the farmers have completed harvesting of early variety Aman paddy BRRI Dhan-33 in the poverty-stricken five districts of the Rangpur region much ahead of the traditional harvesting period of transplanted Aman as reported recently from Rangpur by BSS. The farmers cultivated the short duration early-variety paddy on a large scale with a view to getting early harvest and mitigating crisis of seasonal 'Monga' and got an excellent yield rate. Harvesting of the paddy began in the first week of October and continued till the end of last month. The yield of the dry paddy was around 5 tonnes per hectare on an average. The harvest was completed within the peak Monga period instead of traditional harvesting time of transplanted Aman paddy from November. This also helped the reduction of job crisis of over 50,000 farm labourers of the area.

According to the report, the Bangladesh Rice Research Institute (BRRI) invented the new technology of farming the early variety of Aman paddy after long research to help mitigate Monga, especially during the months of 'Aswin' and 'Kartik' of the Bangla calendar. The project on expanding Early Rice Cultivation through Direct Seeded Rice was launched in 2006 with technical support from BRRI for the first time on a large scale by three non-governmental organisations - TMSS, USS, RDRS - and government organisation, BRDB under the Northwest Focal Area Forum.

Under the project, 3,000 acres of land involving 10,000 farmers were brought under farming of BRRI Dhan-33 last year in the five districts of greater Rangpur and that yielded expected results. This year, one NGO - Rangpur-Dinajpur Rural Service, better known as 'RDRS' alone brought 1,000 acres of land under the cultivation of the same variety of paddy in Rangpur, Kurigram, Gaibandha, Lalmonirhat and Nilphamari helping 1,500 farmers. Showing keen interest, more and more NGOs are getting involved in popularising cultivation of the early variety of paddy. As many as 25 NGOs have encouraged farmers of the locality to cultivate paddy of the same early variety this year and the RDRS is planning to bring about 1,200 acres land under its farming next year in the area.

Large scale farming of this paddy would reduce cultivation time to 60 from more than 90 days and farmers would be benefited through cultivation of subsequent Rabi crops and vegetables in relay methods in the same cultivable lands. The technology will expedite the eradication of seasonal Monga from the region and increase the cropping intensity and overall crop production and also help reduce risks of crop loss due to natural calamities. Experts have underscored the need for increasing production of seeds of BRRI Dhan-33 by various government departments and NGOs to provide the same to the farmers for further expanding its cultivation.