Drought like situation has been prevailing in all the seven upazilas in the district for a couple of days last affecting the cultivation of high value crop T-Aman paddy during the current season.
According to sources the Department of Agriculture Extension (DAE) set a target to bring a total of 1, 21, 259 hectares of land under T-Aman paddy cultivation this year with the production target of 3, 13, 475 tonnes of rice.
The T-Aman paddy cultivation was seriously hampered as the farmers were facing problem to transplant the seedlings of T-Aman paddy for want of required water. In many of the places in the district, cracks have also developed in the land.
In this situation, many solvent farmers have installed electricity run water pumps in the land aimed at supplying required water to transplant the seedlings and save those from the drought.
The poor and marginal farmers are in great troubles as they cannot provide water from the diesel run shallow machines in the land properly due to highly cost of irrigation water.
All the farmers were eagerly waiting for heavy rainfall as a pick hour of transplantation of Aman seedlings on their land was going on.
Mamtazur Rahman, a farmer of Barobaldia village under Sadar upazila, said if the farmer cultivated T-Aman paddy through supplying irrigation water from diesel run shallow machines, the production cost would increase to a great extent.
As a result, the growers might have possibility to incur losses this year for not recouping the production cost against the crop, he added.
M Kuddus Alam, another farmer of the village, said if the drought like situation continues for next few days and the electricity supply was not ensured properly, farming of Aman paddy would be hampered.
BSS from Rangpur adds: The prevailing drought-like situation during the past few consecutive weeks has been hampering cultivation of Transplanted Aman (T- Aman) crop at most places in the northern region, farmers and official sources said.
The officials and experts of the Department of Agriculture Extension (DAE) and other agriculture-related organisations have been suggesting farmers for maintaining minimum wetness in already transplanted T-Aman fields by providing supplementary irrigations.
According to the DAE sources, the farmers have already completed transplantation of T- Aman seedlings on over 11.44 lakh hectares of land so far, 64.08 percent of the fixed target of cultivation of the crop on over 17.85 lakh hectares of land this season in the region.
Most of the 7.80 lakh shallow & deep tube wells, low lift pumps of farmers, Bangladesh Agriculture Development Corporation (BADC) and Barind Multipurpose Development Authority (BMDA) are in operation now for supplementary irrigation.
The government has fixed an extensive programme of producing over 47.24 lakh tonnes of clean T-Aman rice of high yielding variety (HYV), local variety and hybrid variety rice from 17.85 lakh hectares land during this season in the region.
Over 16.37 lakh hectares land will be brought under HYV T-Aman farming to produce 44.54 lakh tonnes rice, about 1.31 lakh hectares under local variety to produce 2.16 lakh tonnes and 16,391 hectares under hybrid variety to produce 54,090 tonnes Aman rice.
Talking to BSS, farmers Abdur Rahman, Sukumar Roy, Fanibhushan, Mominur, Abul Kalam, Hakim and others said they are facing acute water crisis now in transplanting Aman seedlings and saving growing plants in their already transplanted fields.
Horticulture Specialist of the DAE Khondker Md Mesbahul Islam said the drought like situation is prevailing at this peak hour of the rainy season when heavy monsoon rains usually paralyse normal life causing flash floods even 2-3 decades ago.
Agriculture and Environment Coordinator of RDRS Bangladesh Mamunur Rashid said the northern region experiences a drought-like situation now due to climate change following global warming as a result of unbridled emission of the green house gases.
Executive Engineer of Dalia Division of Water Development Board Mahbubur Rahman said they are providing supplementary irrigation now to the command area of the Teesta Barrage Project (TBP) in greater Rangpur and Dinajpur districts considering the situation.
Chief Extension Officer of WDB at Rangpur Abdul Jabber today told BSS there is enough water flow now in the Teesta and we are providing supplementary irrigation to 65,000 hectares land diverting water through the TBP to face the situation.
Similarly, authorities of the BADC and BMDA have also taken necessary steps to assist the farmers through providing supplementary irrigations using their deep tube wells to make the T-Aman farming programme successful this season.
