BSS, Rajshahi :
Various forms of cost-effective irrigation technologies are being promoted in drought-prone Barind area in order to reduce the gradually mounting cost for irrigation besides boosting soil productivity.
Many of the farmers avail the scopes of being familiarized with water saving technologies like drip irrigation, fertigation and alternate farrow irrigation in their farmlands under Tanore, Godagari and Chapainawabgonj Sadar Upazilas during last Rabi season.
Iftekhar Ahmed Munna, a farmer of Udpur village under Gogram Union Parishad (UP) of Godagari Upazila, has been cultivating guava on eight bigha of land for last couple of years.
He had to arrange irrigation to the orchard regularly through pump by burning 50-60 liters of diesel per week as there was no deep tube-well nearby.
In order to curtail his excessive irrigation cost Munna installed solar power dependent drip irrigation technology in his guava orchard with financial support from Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM) project.
Now, there is no irrigation cost. But previously, he had to spend Taka 13,000 per month in average for only irrigation purposes. The IWRM project provided 80 percent and he spent the rest twenty percent of the Taka 5.5 lakh scheme.
Not only Munna’s orchard, four other drip units were commissioned in other areas irrigating more than 40 bigha of farmlands.
DASCOH Foundation and Swiss Red Cross is implementing the IWRM project in drought affected 35 UPs and four pourasabhas in Rajshahi and Chapainawabganj districts since 2015 with financial support from Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, said Jahangir Alam Khan, Assistant Project Coordinator.
Main thrust of the project is to build the UP like local government institutions as effective and pro-people institution through farmers’ level sustainable water resource management amidst people participation. A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) has been signed between Bangladesh Agriculture Research Institute (BARI) and IWRM project in November last in order to field level dissemination and expansion of drought tolerant crop varieties and water saving technologies. Dr Sakhawat Hossain, Senior Scientific Officer of BARI, said drip irrigation method consumes 50 to 60 percent less water than that of conventional system. The solar system pump has capacity to provide irrigation to more than 2,000 bighas of cropping fields round the year.
The method also helps reducing fertilizer use by at least 45 percent as it has provision of mixing fertilizer with irrigation water. As the system is dependent on solar power the matter of fuel saving is also important. So, time has come to expand such type of method furthermore in Barind area.
Gogram UP Chairman Mujibur Rahman said the newly commissioned solar power-based drip irrigation pumps has opened up a new door in agriculture sector as farmers can boost their farming yields through the irrigation facilities round the year. In addition to benefiting the farmers economically, the pumps will contribute to reduce the gradually increasing pressure on power supply.
Prof Chowdhury Sarwar Jahan of Department of Geology and Mining in Rajshahi University said the power produced through fossil fuel is carbon contaminated and that always pollute environment.
