Over 2 lakh farmers get agri-incentives

Around 2.51 lakh small and marginal farmers received fertilisers and seeds worth about Tk 8.30 crore free of cost during the current rabi season under the government agriculture incentive programme in the Rajshahi division.

Additional Director of the Department of Agricultural Extension (DAE), Rajshahi Shamsul Wadud said incentives were given to the farmers in all eight districts in the division like in other parts of the country.

“We are very much satisfied with the successful distribution of the rabi crop incentives within due time,” he said, adding that the incentives are helping the farmers grow the seasonal crops successfully.

Shamsul Wadud said each of the beneficiary farmers gets agricultural inputs for cultivating crops like winter vegetables, wheat, maize, mustard, sunflower, groundnut, winter onion, mung-bean, lentil and grass pea on one bigha of land each.

In the division, a total of 5,900 farmers got incentives for winter vegetable farming, 68,000 farmers for wheat, 22,050 for maize, 2.07 lakh for mustard, 3,840 for onion, 4,000 for mung-bean, 6,350 for lentil, 1,000 for sunflower, 11,300 for grass pea and 2,000 for groundnut.

To mitigate pressure on water, the marginal farmers were given seeds of various less-water-consuming crops like wheat, maize, lentil, grass pea and mustard seed, Wadud said.

The incentive programme is contributing a lot to promoting water-saving crops in the drought-prone Barind area, he said.

Rafiqul Islam, a marginalised farmer of Fulbari village under Godagari upazila, said he is very happy after getting the incentives in proper time.

“I have sown wheat seed on one bigha of land timely after getting the seed and fertiliser incentives,” Islam said, adding that the time before 30th November was considered as an appropriate period for sowing wheat seed.

Shakhawat Hossain, another farmer of the Bijoynagar area under the same upazila, said he has sown onion seed after availing the incentives which have saved him from leaving behind his land abandoned.

Pearul Islam of Bhagail village said many of the farmers have benefited from the incentives this season as those were distributed in proper time.