The New Nation - Internet Edition

BSS, Rangpur

The enthusiastic farmers have already started sowing maize seeds in the country's northern region where a target of producing 6,65,912 tonnes of the crop from 1,02,448 hectares has been fixed for this winter season.Official sources in the Department of Agriculture Extension (DAE) on Tuesday told BSS that 56 percent of the national target of producing 11,70,000 tonnes maize from 1,80,000 hectares will be produced this season in the 16 northern districts alone.

The DAE officials said that large-scale maize farming has changed the fate of hundreds of the poor on the sandy-barren char lands in the river basins as in the mainland and the farmers are preparing for farming the cash crop with huge enthusiasm this season.

They said cultivation of maize on vast sandy-char lands and in dried-up beds of the rivers and their tributaries brought about a revolutionary change to the poor farmers and unemployed youths especially during the past five consecutive years.

The char people are bringing huge sandy-barren lands under maize farming for the sixth consecutive time this year as they got tremendous yield of the cash crop and fair prices during the previous years, officials said. Over 25,000 hectares of char lands in the Brahmaputra, Teesta, Dharla, Jamuna, Dudhkumar, Atrai, Kartoa, Ghaghot and other river basins in the region are expected to be brought under maize farming this year.

Cultivation of maize has also been contributing significantly to the poverty reduction and achieving economic self- reliance by the poor in recent years in the region, including the vast char areas, which has become possible for large-scale maize farming.

Maize farming is always more profitable than many other crops and the enthusiastic farmers are getting high yielding variety of maize seeds in farming the crop using the latest scientific methods of cultivation for further successes.

"The prevailing immense potentialities to increase maize production by bringing the huge abandoned char lands in Kurigram, Rangpur, Lalmonirhat, Nilphamari, Bogra, Gaibandha, Sirajganj, Pabna districts are yet to be explored fully," Deputy Director of DAE Kamal Shariful Alam said.

The yield rate has been fixed at 6.5 tonnes per hectare and the farmers are expected to bring more land under maize farming this season and the overall production may cross the fixed target in the region, officials hoped.

Side by side with the government departments, many NGOs have been distributing huge quantities of high yielding variety maize seeds and other inputs among the small and marginal farmers under their various programmes this year.

A total of 9,431 hectares land will be brought under maize farming in Rangpur, 7,868 in Gaibandha, 3,861 in Kurigram, 16,241 in Lalmonirhat, 1,915 in Nilphamari, 22,220 in Dinajpur, 524 in Panchagarh and 5,976 hectares in Thakurgaon under Rangpur Zone.

Besides, maize will be cultivated on 3,478 hectares in Rajshahi, 4,757 in Naogaon, 1,348 in Natore, 6,780 in Chapainawabganj, 13,177 in Bogra, 1,042 in Joypurhat, 766 in

Pabna and 3,064 hectares land in Sirajganj under Rajshahi Zone during this winter season.