The government has allocated Taka 32.90 crore for providing agricultural assistance among the small and marginal farmers to raise aus production during the current summer season.
Agriculture Minister Matia Chowdhury disclosed this while addressing a press briefing at her ministry conference room here yesterday.
As many as 2,25,988 small and marginal farmers will get necessary agricultural inputs including seed and fertilizers for cultivating high yielding variety (HYV)of local Aus and Nerica, a short duration and drought tolerant rice variety brought from Africa in 2009, on a bigha of land.
“The government will provide incentive of Taka 27.10 crore for cultivating HYV Aus crop in 51 districts and Taka 3.90 crore for cultivating the Nerica variety of aus in 40 districts during the upcoming kharif-1 season which would begin from March 16”, said the minister .
A total of 2 lakh farmers will get assistance for cultivating HYV aus and another 20,000 farmers for Nerica cultivation, she told the press briefing.
In addition to this, the government will provide more Taka 1.90,16460 for cultivating jute, sugarcane and pest control of ‘Sweet gourd’ vegetable in 64 districts across the country, Matia added.
For cultivating HYV Aus, a farmer will get 5kg paddy seed, 20kg urea, 10 kg Di-Ammonium Phosphate (DAP) and 10 kg Muriat of Potash (MoP) under the agricultural incentive programme.
On the other hand, each farmer will 10kg seed, 20 kg urea and each 10 kg DAP and MoP for cultivating the Nerica variety.
The incentive will help to produce additional 70,000 tonnes of HYV Aus and more than 6000 tonnes of Nerica paddy during the Kharif -1 season which is expected to be harvested on mid July, said the briefing.
Senior ministry officials including Agriculture secretary Mohammad Mainuddin Abdullah and Director General of the Department of Agricultural Extension (DAE) Mohammad Manjurul Hannan, among others, were present at the press briefing.
