Sylhet Correspondent :
Senior agriculture scientists at a workshop on Sunday stressed raising farming area and yield of Aus and Aman crops in Sylhet division this time with a view to recouping the huge loss, caused by the recent early and devastating floods, that hit the region in late March and April.
Bringing arable lands under farming as well as using required fertiliser and quality seeds of high yielding verities of crops in time would help much in achieving the goal, they asserted.
Additional Director of the DAE Sylhet region Md. Altabur Rahman attended the event styled ‘Affects of losses by the recent floods and programme for raising yield of Aus and Aman crops’ at the Sylhet district council auditorium as the chief guest.
Project Director of Crop Diversification Project for Sylhet division Md Wahiduzzaman presided over the event. DAE’s Additional Director, Monitoring and Implemen-tation, Uddin Ahmed addressed as the special guest. Region and district level officials in addition to the upazila and union level agriculture officers of DAE from all the four districts of Sylhet division took part in the event while deputy directors from Sylhet Md Abul Hashem, Zahedul Haque from Sunamganj, Md Fazlur Rahman from Habiganj and Md. Shahjahan from Moulvibazar districts addressed. The speakers also stressed the need for crop diversification, use of modern technology in farming alongside providing sufficient support for the farmers in general for better yield of crops. Things should be done on regional context and problems and issues need to be addressed on the basis of local experiences and necessity, they asserted.
The chief guest also stressed for spreading short-duration paddy farming to avert flood risks. Haor areas always need separate interventions.
The farmers at all levels should be motivated for selecting high yielding varieties of paddy, mustard, wheat and jute seeds, the speakers said, besides we need monitoring of the whole process of farming, including combating pest attack, harvest and preservation of crops and their seeds. The DAE would set up adequate demonstration plots of these crops for disseminating the advanced knowledge and technology, they added.
It is statable here that crops worth about Tk 20 billion were lost in the devastating floods this year in Sylhet division.
