Staff Reporter, Rangpur :
Md. Mesbahul Islam, Senior Secretary, Ministry of Agriculture, said that the current population of Bangladesh is about 17.59 crore; With a growth rate of 1.2pc in 2030, which will increase to 189.6 million. For this growing population, an additional 3.30 lakh metric tons of rice needs to be produced every year. On the other hand, the amount of agricultural land, fertility of land, natural resources including ground water and agricultural labor are gradually declining. He further said that one of the aims of the agriculture related departments is to increase the yield and ensure food security through innovation and expansion of high yielding modern varieties and sustainable technologies using limited resources in paddy production.
He was speaking as the chief guest at the BRRI Paddy Harvesting Festival at Mohanpur village in collaboration with the Department of Agricultural Extension, Sadar Dinajpur, organized by Bangladesh Paddy Research Institute (BRRI), Regional Office, Rangpur on Saturday afternoon.
It may be mentioned that on the occasion of the centenary of Mujib’s birth, a block exhibition of 90 varieties of BRRI paddy was implemented on one acre of land of farmer Md. Abdur Rashid Sarkar in Mohanpur village. Invented in 2019, BRRI Paddy of 90 variety has all the features of modern Ufshi rice.
The stems of this variety are hard, do not bend easily and the tree remains green even after ripening of paddy. The average height of this variety of paddy is 110 cm and the shape of the paddy is small grains like BRRI Dhan 34. The yield of the variety is 15 manas per bigha (33 percent) at 14% humidity and the life span was 116 days.
Everyone present was satisfied with the expected yield of the short-lived variety and the officials of the Department of Agricultural Extension expressed their conviction about the immense potential of growing pulses, spices (onion and garlic), oil and pulses in the Dinajpur region through extensive expansion of the variety at the farmer level.
Also present as guests were Additional Director, DAE, Rangpur Region, agriculturist Md. Touhidul Iqbal, agriculturist Md. Shah Alam, Additional Director (Acting), DAE, Dinajpur Region, Dinajpur; Agriculturist Pradeep Kumar Guha, Deputy Director, DAE, Dinajpur; Md. Rakibul Hasan, Chief and Senior Scientific Officer, BRRI Regional Office, Rangpur; Dr. Md. Masud Rana, Senior Scientific Officer, Bri Rangpur; Md. Anishar Rahman, Scientific Officer, Bri Rangpur and Md. Rafiquzzaman, Agricultural Extension Officer, Dinajpur Sadar Upazila. Also present were officials from different levels of AIS, BADC, Department of Agricultural Extension Chirirbandar and BRRI Regional Office Rangpur, local farmers including local public representatives and representatives of various print and electronic media. The harvest festival was attended by about 100 farmers and agri-related participants.
