BSS, Rajshahi :
More than 1.5 lakh marginal and small farmers are getting fertilizers and seeds amounting at about Taka 17.06 crore free of cost during the current rabi season under government agriculture incentive programme in Rajshahi division, an official said.
Department of Agriculture Extension (DAE)’s additional director Deb Dulal Dhali here told BSS that incentives are being given to the farmers in all upazilas of eight districts in the division.
“We are very much hopeful about completing distribution of the Rabi crop seed within this month,” he said, adding that the incentives will help the farmers grow the seasonal crops successfully.
Agriculturist Dhali said each of the beneficiary farmers are getting agro inputs for cultivating crops like wheat, maize, mustard seed, onions and winter mug-bean on one bigha of land.
In the division, a total of 17,000 farmers will get incentives for wheat farming, 42,500 for maize, 65,500 for mustard, 2,500 for onion, 8,800 for winter mug-bean, 6,000 for summer mug-bean, 7,200 summer sesame and 1,400 for groundnut.
To mitigate pressure on water, the marginal farmers are being given seeds of various less-water consuming crops like wheat, maize and mustard seed, Dhali said.
Prof Chowdhury Sarwar Jahan of Department of Geology and Mining in Rajshahi University said the incentive programme will contribute a lot to promoting the water-saving crops in the drought-prone Barind area.
More than 1,000 volunteers are motivating farmers to cultivate less water consuming crops through water resource management on behalf of the ‘Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM)’ Project.
DASCOH Foundation has been implementing the IWRM project in 1,280 drought- hit villages of 39 Union Parishad and three municipalities in eight upazilas of Rajshahi, Naogaon and Chapainawabganj districts with financial support of Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation since 2015.
Hafizur Rahman, a farmer of Mushribhuja village under Volahat Upazila, saidhe is very happy after cultivating various less-water consuming crops like wheat, mustard, potato and lentil.
“I had to face many troubles to manage irrigation water for Boro cultivation,” he added. But, the cultivation of water-saving crops is suitable for farmers of the area and the incentives will surely promote the crops furthermore.
Ishrafil Haque, a volunteer of Nizampur village under Nachole Upazila, said farming of less-water consuming crops is increasing in the area every year.
Meanwhile, all sorts of necessary measures has been adopted to make the farming during current rabi season successful, said Shamsul Haque, Deputy Director of DAE.
DAE has set a target of producing 34.30 lakh tonnes of boro paddy from 8.08 lakh hectares of land, 5.19 lakh tonnes of wheat from 1.46 lakh hectares of land and 4.56 lakh tonnes of maize from 49,482 hectares of land, he said.
Haque also said target has also been set to produce 18.72 lakh tonnes of vegetables from 86,708 hectares of land, 35.81 lakh tonnes of potato from 1.56 lakh hectares, 2.93 lakh tonnes of mustard seed from 2.05 lakh hectares and 9.67 lakh tonnes of onion from 79,985 hectares of land.
