City Desk :
Bangladesh Rice Research Institute (BRRI) has setup a rice museum, which is first of it’s kind in the country, at BRRI premises in Gazipur aiming to equip people with modern rice farming technology and exhibits smooth transition of traditional rice farming to latest mechanized one.
The museum has been setup under a three-year project titled rice museum construction programme initiated by the BRRI at a cost of Taka 1 crore between July 2018 and June 2021.
The museum has already been kept open for the visitors, but the museum will be formally inaugurated in the upcoming anniversary of the BRRI during this year.
A total of 108 different rice varieties innovated by the BRRI have been showcased in the museum which include 99 in-breed and seven zinc fortified hybrid rice varieties, reports BSS.
In the rice museum, a BRRI official said all the high yielding varieties including two most popular Boro season rice varieties like BR-28 and BR-29 innovated by the BRRI have been displayed.
Chandina, or BR-1, a first BRRI innovated rice variety which was discovered by BRRI’s Cumilla regional office after the independence during 1971-72, displayed in the museum. The two high yielding varieties for aman and boro season -like BR-87, BR-88 and BR-89 were displayed in the museum as ‘mega variety’.
Even the museum has collected the geographical indication (GI) certificate for two Bangladeshi rice -one is Katiaribogh rice of Dinajpur and another is Kalijira as the own patent product of Bangladesh.
The zinc fortified BR-100 or Bangabandhu rice has been released marking birth centenary of Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman on March 17, 2020.
Talking about rice museum, BRRI Director General Dr Shahjahan Kabir said that the museum has displayed the initial stage of rice farming along with, main 30 important rice pests and different weeds grow in rice field have also been displayed in the museum.
