A big shortfall in the current year's Aman output is feared as the acreage of the country's second largest crop has fallen short of target by over 0.2 million hectares following a drought-like-situation.
According to official figures, about 5.24 million hectares of land came under cultivation of T-Aman (transplanted aman) this season against the target of 5.4 million hectares.
Like the T-Aman, areas of land under the plantation of B-Aman (broadcasting aman) had also fallen short of the nearly 0.4-million hectares of target set for the current cropping season.
"Such a significant shortfall in the overall Aman acreage has put the attainment of Aman production target in a great risk," a government official said.
A delayed plantation of Aman crop caused mainly due to dearth of the monsoon rainfall could also affect the per hectare rice output, agriculturists said.
The government had earlier fixed the rice production target at 12.70 million tonnes for the current Aman season.
To achieve the output target, the Department of Agriculture Extension (DAE) had earmarked a total of 5.8 million hectares of land to come under the cultivation of Aman crop - both T-Aman and B-Aman.
But the prevailing target shortfall, according to agri-officials, is the result of an 'unusual' drought-like situation that badly affected Aman cultivation across the country including the northern regions - the major rice cropping zone.
Due to the dearth of rainfall, many farmers could not cultivate Aman crop during the proper time, they said, adding the optimum time for plantation of T-Aman is between mid-July and mid-August.
As a result, farmers of the country's 16 northern districts had no alternative but to go for a delayed plantation with the help of a special irrigation programme, launched in the Barind areas by the government.
On July 22, the Ministry of Agriculture took up a Tk 80-million special programme for supplying free electricity to the drought-hit 16 districts of the country's northern region in order to run about 9,470 irrigation pumps under the Barind Multipurpose Development Authority (BMDA).
As a result of the delay, farmers of the northern belt had to switch over to local variety of crops instead of high-yielding variety (HYV) ones.
According to agriculturists, the delayed plantation of Aman beyond the optimum time can lead to significant losses in its per hectare yield.
Many farmers of the region are still using water-pumps to irrigate their dried-up Aman land.
In the last Aman cropping season, the country's total rice production was recorded at 11.20 million tonnes against the target of 12.3 million tonnes. |
Source : |
|
| |
|
