Improved variety of paddy seeds remains unsold

While many farmers are forced to use substandard paddy seeds due to the unavailability of quality seeds, a huge quantity of improved seeds procured by Bangladesh Agriculture Development Corporation (BADC) have remained unsold in the Rangpur region this season.

According to sources, the seeds of BADC remain unsold during the Boro season due to a lack of manpower at the field level and coordination with the Directorate of Agriculture Extension (DAE).

Sources close to the insiders disclosed that BADC could not sell some 1,936 tonnes of Boro seeds to the farmers during the two paddy seasons as the farmers did not show their interest in buying seeds despite fixing the sale price at Tk 56-57 per kg by the corporation. Later, the department sold the stock at Tk 33-35 per kg as food.

Dealers and farmers claimed that though BADC procures quality seed, the supply often becomes unavailable at the peak of the season while the private company’s seeds have an adequate supply in the market. So, the farmers are inclined to buy private companies' seed despite its high price compared to the government’s seed. 

A BADC dealer of Sadullahpur Upazila under Gaibandha district, Md Ahlad Hossain Ritu said farmers' choice differs and many of them lack awareness about the high-yielding variety of BADC paddy seeds. A packet contains 10 kg of seed while many of the farmers do not need this amount of seeds.

So, they prefer to buy the private companies' seeds as their packets of small quantities are available in the market. The required number of seed stock, however, is not available in the BADC transit warehouse, he said.

Baccha Miah, a farmer of Gadha village Kishoreganj Upazila under Nilphamari district, said BADC sells quality paddy variety seeds among the farmers at an affordable price. Farmers' choices differ based on areas. Many farmers like to plant early varieties while some prefer late varieties.

Demand for BADC seeds will increase among the farmers if it ensures adequate supply on time according to the farmers’ demand. 

BADC, however, needs to increase its manpower at the field level to convince the farmers about the quality of the kernel as there are so many representatives of private seed companies who remain active in promoting their product in the market and keep non-stop monitoring.

Officials of BADC Rangpur region office said some 2808.325 tonnes of seeds were allocated for the 2023-2024 Boro season in Rangpur, Kurigram, Gaibandha, Nilphamari and Lalmonirhat districts of the region. Of them, 700 tonnes were given to the farmers as incentives.  Dealers extracted 1871.619 tonnes and the rest 936.696 tonnes remained unsold.  Of the 2,965 tonnes allocation in the 2022-2023 season, around 1,000 tonnes remained unsold.

There are a total of 852 registered dealers in five districts of the Rangpur agriculture zone.  Some 24 varieties of Boro seeds were sold among the farmers this year.   Seed extraction and selling were closed on the 10th of January. One kg seed was sold at Tk 56-57 to the farmers.

When asked, the deputy director at BADC Rangpur region, Md Masud Sultan, said the entire country requires around 1.15 lakh tonnes of seed while about 1.27 lakh tonnes of seeds were procured in the country by BADC and private companies.

So, a considerable amount of seeds will remain unsold. In addition, farmers often feel reluctant to accept new varieties of paddy seeds thereby leading to a surplus. Of the unsold seeds mostly are BRRI- 89 varieties. The surplus seeds were sold as food- Rice at Tk 33-35, he added.

Many of the dealers in different areas of the districts observed that farmers in the region used to cultivate different paddy varieties. So, it needs to procure varieties of seeds and ensure the supply according to the demand of the farmers.  BADC and DAE have to coordinate to launch a concerted effort and campaign to make a new paddy variety seed familiar among the farmers, they added.

Officials of DAE Rangpur said the government has fixed a target to bring some 5, 07,835 hectares of land producing 22, 59, 573 tonnes of boro paddy in five districts of the Rangpur agricultural region this season.

The farmers, however, exceeded the target and brought a total of 5,08,137 hectares of land under the farming in the region.