Md. Emdadul Haque Dupchanchia :
Farmers and others concerned, including agriculturists, are very much optimistic about the overall wheat production during the current season in Bogra district including 12 upazilas particularly the vast char area.
Director of Department of Agriculture Extension said that timely plantation of seeds accompanied by the current cold spell is being considered as a positive sign for attaining bumper production of the cash crop. He said farmers of the district were found more confident in wheat farming on more new lands, due to the water-stress condition, as wheat is a less-water consuming plant.
Wheat Research Center has so far released 24 varieties of wheat for commercial cultivation. The recently released six varieties including prodip, bijoy, shatabdi and BARIGAM-26 are more tolerant to leaf blight and leaf rush-disease with additional advantage of higher yield, he added. “We have developed projection plots on around 200 hectares of farmers’ field in the area for boosting seed production of the latest varieties during the current season, besides various other motivational campaigns and training programmes,” he added.
Farmers have cultivated wheat on around 2300 hectares of land against the target of 70 lakh hectares fixed by the Department of Agriculture Extension in Bogra districts in Rajshahi division showing enhancement of 70 percent than the target. Director of Department of Agriculture Extension, said wide-range promotion of the newly innovated variety could help increase wheat yield. He opined that there is no alternative to promoting modern technology and using high yielding wheat seeds to reduce dependency on food import to meet the internal demand.
Wheat plays an important role to ensure food security as its consumption is increasing day by day. But, Bangladesh produces hardly 5 lakh metric tons of wheat against the demand of around 12 lakh tonnes annually, he stated. Boosted up wheat production is very important for ensuring food security as it is the second most important cereal in the country after rice and plays a vital role in the national food security, he added. Official viewed time has come to enhance acreage of wheat farming instead of only depending on Irri-Boro rice in the dried area to ensure food security amid the adverse impact of climate change.
Apart from this, he mentioned that seven to eight bighas of wheat could be cultivated with the irrigated water of only one bigha of Boro rice through soil moisture utilization and the best uses of the modern technologies.
