Gazipur Correspondent :
Agriculture experts have urged the farming communities to increase Aus and Aman rice cultivation throughout country for long term benefit and sustainable development. They made this call in a workshop on strategic plan for increasing Aus and Aman cultivation held at Bangladesh Rice Research Institute (BRRI) on Wednesday in Gazipur.
The Secretary of the Ministry of Agriculture Dr S M Nazmul Islam was the chief guest in the inaugural session of the workshop. Director General of the Department of Agricultural Extension Md Abu Hanif Mia, Executive Chairman of the Bangladesh Agricultural Research Council Dr Md Kamal Uddin and Chairman of Bangladesh Agricultural Development Corporation Md Jahir Uddin Ahmed, NDC were the special guests with BRRI Director General Dr Jiban Krishna Biswas in the chair while BRRI Director (Admin and CS) Dr Md Shahjahan Kabir presented the key note paper and deliver the welcome address.
Experts and officials from different government and non-government organizations including BARC, DAE along with universities as well as farmers’ representatives attended the workshop.
Using a nation-wide survey with simulation modeling technique BRRI scientists have predicted that if the strategic plan of seasonal rearrangement and cultivating fallow land with high yielding rice varieties instead of local landraces could be implemented about 2.5 million tons of additional clean rice could be produced per year and its market price is about TK 8 crores at present. The key note paper of the workshop focusing on the details of the aforesaid estimation also pointed out that Bangladesh can be a food exporting country in the near future.
Research activities of BRRI done over the last year along with the significant information related to food security of the people of Bangladesh will also be the focal points of the day-long workshop.
The organizers say, BRRI has so far developed 65 high yielding rice varieties including four hybrid ones having three times higher yield potential than the traditional rice.
At present BRRI varieties cover 80 percent of the total rice area that accounts for 90 percent of the total rice production of the country. BRRI varieties have played a vital role in making Bangladesh a food surplus country by producing enough rice it requires.
The most popular BRRI developed high yielding Boro varieties include BRRI dhan28 and BRRI dhan29. In Aman season BR11 is equally popular to the farm level. To meet the need of the hour BRRI is developing new varieties with similar qualities. To face the challenge of climate change in recent times BRRI has developed cold, submergence, drought and saline tolerant varieties that include BRRI dhan36, BRRI dhan40, BRRI dhan41, BRRI dhan51, BRRI dhan52, BRRI dhan53, BRRI dhan54, BRRI dhan55, BRRI dhan56 and BRRI dhan57 etc. Among the most recent BRRI varieties BRRI dhan62 is released as the world’s first zinc enriched rice which is one of the most short duration Aman variety also having average life time of 100 days. Scientists see it as a milestone in the process of developing early maturing varieties. press release
