Nerica, a short duration and drought tolerant rice variety brought from Africa in 2009, has been found as tolerable for the drought-prone Barind area creating high hope among the farmers and others concerned.
Before being revealed the prospect, a feasibility study has been conducted on trial basis in some demonstration plots during the current transplanted Aman season. Abul Kalam Azad, Deputy Director of Department of Agriculture Extension, revealed the success story quoting outputs of some crop-cutting and field evaluation ceremonies.
Basically, we have cultivated the variety on around two acres of farmers’ field and the harvested yield was seen satisfactory and promising, he mentioned.
He said erratic rain and drought-like situation might occur in future and suggested developing stress-tolerant variety to fight the impact of climate change and ensure better crop in about 9 lakh hectares of drought-prone land in the north.
Before the trial, he said the farmers and sub-assistant agriculture officers were imparted training on farming methods practically.
In addition to the specialised characteristics of short duration and drought tolerant he said the variety can be cultivated round the year which is a good sign for ensuring food security of the nation.
Giving a salient feature of the rice variety he said it will give satisfactory yield with scanty rainfall without any irrigation during the rain-fed transplanted Aman season in the drought-prone area.
The declining rainfall coupled with the enhanced temperature due to adverse impact of the climate change has put the agriculture sector at a vulnerable condition. So, we have no way but to go for the drought tolerant varieties for increasing farming of drought-tolerant paddy to ensure the country’s food security, he pointed out.
To cope with the degradable position, Bangladesh Agriculture Development Corporation (BADC) and DAE jointly conducted the field level research in the Barind area and finally attained the success.
Abul Kalam Azad mentioned that average yield of the variety is 1.5 to 2 tonnes per hectare, which is similar to some indigenous varieties. dint of its early harvesting aspect, he attributed that the variety will help early plantation of various winter crops and vegetables like wheat, mustard-seed and potato as the region is conventionally famous for farming of those.
Additional Director of DAE, Nuruzzaman Mollah stated most of the long-durable varieties have become vulnerable due to the crisis of irrigation water. So, the newly developed variety would easily supplement the crop loss side by side with meeting up the farmers demands.
Besides, he hoped that the exotic variety would bring a positive result for around 2 million hectares of land in the rain-fed drought prone area alongside playing a vital role in boosting rice yield in the days to come.
