The New Nation - Internet Edition

BSS, Rajshahi

The Department of Agriculture Extension (DAE) has fixed a target of producing 1,04,415 tonnes of pulses including lentil, gram and mashkalai from around 1.04 lakh hectares of lands in the country's 16 northern districts under Rajshahi Division.

Officials told BSS here today that 50,313 tonnes of lentil, 5,812 tonnes of gram and 48,290 tonnes of mashkalai would be produced during the current Rabi season in the region. Bangladesh Agriculture Research Institute (BARI), Bangladesh Agriculture Development Corporation (BADC), DAE and several NGOs have taken necessary steps to make the cultivation of pulses a success in the region.

Under the programme, the farmers soon after harvesting the transplanted Aman paddy have brought 95,112 hectares of land under pulses production in Rajshahi, Naogaon, Natore, Chapainawabganj, Pabna, Sirajganj and Bogra districts and also 1,389 hectares in Joypurhat district under the Rajshahi Agriculture Zone during the current season.

Similarly, a total of 9,303 hectares of land were brought under farming in eight other districts of Rangpur, Gaibandha, Lalmonirhat, Nilphamari, Kurigram, Dinajpur, Thakurgaon and Panchagarh districts under the Rangpur Agriculture Zone. Adequate training, technical assistances, inputs, high quality imported and locally produced seeds and agri-loans are being provided to the farmers under various programmes of different government and non-government organisations. The officials said special steps, taken in recent years to produce pulses, helped increase production of pulses to keep the price of these food items within tolerable limit.

On Farm Research Division (OFRD) of the BARI has been implementing the field-level research programmes styled "Reduction of Yield Gap of Gram" aimed at making the gram farming popular at the growers' level through applying modern method.

OFRD Senior Officer Shafiqul Islam told BSS that the research programmes have already created a positive impact among the target groups and said the prospect of gram cultivation in the high lands is bright. "Chickpea seeds should be sown in lands under the arrangement of insufficient irrigation within two to three days after the harvest of Aman paddy," he said.

Under the programme, the OFRD has been providing all sorts of inputs like seed and other technical know-how to reduce the yield gap at the farmers' level. In the developed method, Islam said, if the gram farming among farmers could be made popular, the government can save huge hard-earned foreign currencies being spent for importing this item.

Additional Director of DAE Abul Basher said emphasis is being given on increasing production of high yielding seeds through the farmers' level extension and application of the high yielding varieties.

Farmers are being habituated with the modern cultivation method along with using quality seed through establishing projection plot of improved technologies for enhancing pulse output.

Chief Scientific Officer of Regional Agriculture Research Station at Ishwardi under BARI Dr. Jalal Uddin said BARI and BINA have developed 11 high yielding varieties of lentil and gram and said required steps were taken to increase production of the varieties by providing modern technology to the farmers. He said the farmers are being imparted training on Inter-cropping of lentil and gram with sugarcane and the method has become popular in many places in the region.

To remove the crisis of quality seed, Dr Jalal said step has been taken to establish seed-village with farmers' participation for enhancing production of breeder seed.

Considering the agricultural environment and socio-economic condition of the region, the rice-gram crop-diversification method should be promoted at the grassroots as it has been adjudged as profit making, cost-effective and timesaving. Referring to the immense prospect of the crop, he said if the yield could be enhanced to the expected level through expansion of modern cultivation methods the nation could save the hard- earned foreign currency.

Experts said importance should be given on formation of farmers group in block system instead of personal initiative. As such, the existing prospects in the agriculture sector could be made realistic.

Senior agro-experts of DAE, BADC and BARI said pulse import would be reduced further next year if its production target were achieved.