Home ›› 11 Feb 2022 ›› Nation
Paddy transplanter, equipment for transplanting paddy seedlings, has become very popular among farmers in Rangpur as the machine has reduced farming costs and labour crisis,
Usage of the machine is very common in Jagdishpur in Taraganj of Rangpur.
According to Taraganj Upazila Agriculture Office of the Department of Agricultural Extension (DAE), farmers get multiple benefits using the transplanter. It ensures transplanting seedlings maintaining proper spaces and depths.
Upazila Agriculture Officer Urmi Tabasum said a group of farmers in the village has taken measures cooperatively to cultivate boro paddy on five acres of land using the machine.
The agriculture office distributed the high yielding boro paddy seed Bangabandhu Dhan -100 and fertiliser among the farmers.
Using transplanter machines facilitates the farmers to plant seedlings in more land areas in less time with less labour. It helps reduce the farmers’ burden in achieving proper space and plant density putting a sufficient number of seedlings on the lands, said Tabasum.
In the 2020-21 boro season, some 50 acres of lands were brought under The farm Mechanisation programme comprising 78 farmers at Rahaimapur in Taraganj and it inspired the farmers to adopt the mechanised farming system.
Abdur Rahim, a farmer of the group said, they got inspired from the pilot project of the DAE and developed the seedlings in the tray system instead of seedbed. The mechanised system ensures to transplant the seedlings in the lands in rows maintaining space and reduces the farming cost.
They had to spend at least Tk 5,000 for transplanting one acre of land earlier in the traditional system while it has stood only Tk 3000 per acres now.
The owner of Bhhai Bandhu Krisi Farm in Annantoram in Pirgachha said the transplanter machine is suitable for farming in large scale lands.
Additional Director of DAE Rangpur Mahabub Rhaman said the government has been giving the farmers fifty per cent subsidy to buy the transplanter machines under Farm Mechanisation Project to promote the advanced technology-oriented farming system.
The DAE has also taken a pilot program- Samaloy method - in some upazillas under Rangpur, Kurigram, Nilphamari, Lalmonirhat and Gaibandha bringing 50 acres of lands in the current boro season.
Paddy transplanter machines ensure the faster and healthier growth of the plants and increase at least twenty per cent cropping in the lands and reduce farming costs significantly, he said.
The DAE has brought some 5,03,550 hectares of land under boro farming targeting to produce 22,07,132 tonnes of clean Boro rice in the region this year.
