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Boro harvest in full swing in Sylhet haor

Rezaul Haque . Sylhet
28 Apr 2023 00:00:00 | Update: 28 Apr 2023 02:43:28
Boro harvest in full swing in Sylhet haor
Farmers busy harvesting Boro paddy at a field in Sunamganj haor – Rezaul Haque

Boro paddy harvest is ongoing in full swing in the haor areas of Sylhet region earlier than usual to protect it from flash floods.

Floods have become a common occurrence in the haor regions of the division during early monsoon in recent years. Learn-ing from previous experiences of losing their paddy to floods, farmers decided to start harvesting early.

The agriculture department, with the help of district and upazila administrations, is repeatedly announcing via microphones to harvest paddy urgently.

According to Sylhet Divisional agricultural office sources, about 14 per cent of paddy has been ripened. The rest will ripen within the next two weeks.

However, even if the farmers managed to save their paddy from floods this time, rice blast disease has become a source of worry for them. Paddy of about 443 hectares of land was affected by this disease in the region.

About 55 hectares of paddy fields were affected by rice blast disease, but some 50 hectares of paddy were cured. Moreo-ver, out of 108.9 hectares of affected paddy about 95.3 hectares were cured.

In Sylhet, 175 hectares of paddy were cured out of the 180 hectares affected by the disease. In Moulvibazar, 90 out of the affected 95 hectares of paddy were saved. In total. Some 27.7 hectares of paddy are still affected by the disease, however, the rest were cured, said agricultural office sources.

This correspondent found that 64 per cent of rice has been harvested in Sunamganj, 43 per cent in Sylhet, 39 per cent in Habiganj and 41 per cent in Moulvibazar. In total, about 51 per cent of paddy in the division, and 70 per cent in the haor region have already been harvested.

Meanwhile, the target cultivation in the division was 4,88,160 hectares but farmers planted paddy on 4,90,577 hectares of land. The rice production target is 19,99,821 tonnes.

Sources of Sunamganj district administration informed that they have been announcing via microphones in markets and populated areas of the haor regions to harvest paddy as early as possible.

Department of Agricultural Extension (DAE) Sunamganj sources said Boro has been cultivated on 2,22,795 hectares of land in the district this year. About 64 per cent of this is in haor areas in Shalla, Dharmapasha, Jamalganj and Derai upazilas.

Meanwhile, the farmers and the leaders of Haor Bachao Andolan have disagreed about paddy harvesting facts with gov-ernment sources. According to them, even though most of the paddy is ripe, there is a delay in harvesting the paddy due to insufficient labourers and harvesters.

Shah Mohammad Sajib, an assistant meteorologist at Sylhet Meteorological Department, said that there may be light to moderate rainfall, wind and hailstorm at present. Heavy rains are likely to occur at intervals.

Bangladesh Water Development Board (BWDB) Sunamganj, Executive Engineer Shamsuddoha said, heavy rainfall and hail-storms have been predicted which may affect the crops in the haor region. Thus they are urging farmers to harvest paddy as soon as possible.

Sunamganj District Commissioner Didare Alam Mohammad Maksud Chowdhury said, “We have instructed the Upazila Nirbahi Officers to announce about urgently harvesting the paddy in their areas. There is no shortage of labourers and there are about 1,000 harvesters active in the fields.” He added that there is nothing to worry about right now.

Sunamganj DAE Deputy Director Bimal Chandra Som said on average about 6 per cent of the total cultivation is being har-vested per day.

“All of the crops in haor areas are suitable for harvesting. There is no shortage of workers or harvester machines. We are campaigning to harvest the paddy quickly to prevent wastage due to rain, hailstorm and flood.

However, according to the farmers of Habiganj who cultivated the BRRI-28 paddy variety, most of their harvest has been lost to the rice blast disease. Especially the farmers of Lakhai, Baniachong and Ajmiriganj upazilas have been affected more.

Mintu Das, a farmer of Swajangram in Lakhai, said, “In the previous years, I had been able to sell 70 maunds of rice after keeping enough to feed my family for a year. This year I have lost almost all of my paddy and do not have enough to last even two months.”

He added that every farmer in the area who cultivated the BRRI-28 paddy variety has been similarly affected.

According to Habiganj DAE sources, a target cultivation of 5,13,093 tonnes of rice has been set in the current Boro season in the district. However, they believe the production may decrease slightly due to the paddy being affected by rice blast disease.

Habiganj DAE Deputy Director Agriculturist Noor-e Alam Siddiqui said, “I have been informed by the field officers that some of the BRRI-28 variety have been affected by rice blast disease this year in the district. The extreme temperature conditions may have affected this.”

He further said that farmers are being advised to apply pesticides properly to prevent it as much as possible. “During the flowering period this year, due to excessive heat during the day, the rice flowers have dried up and perished. That’s why the problem has arisen,” he added.

According to him, the BRRI-28 variety was invented over two decades ago, and no further research has been done on this to improve its immunity. The variety is prone to diseases. Farmers are usually discouraged from using it, however, they tend to trust older varieties instead of the newer ones.

Recently, Agriculture Minister Abdur Razzaque launched the Boro paddy harvest in haor areas of Sunamganj ahead of Eid-ul-Fitr. At the time, he said there will be a bumper production this year if there was no natural disaster and rice can be har-vested on time.

He said only in Sunamganj, around 1,000 combined paddy harvesters are active, adding that there will be no problem in harvesting paddy this time.

According to DAE sources, Boro has been sown on 50 lakh hectares of land across the country this year, while the produc-tion target is 21.5 million tonnes of rice. In the last fiscal year 2021-22, Boro rice was sown on 48,14,000 hectares of land, and about 20.2 million tonnes of rice were produced.

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