Agriculture Minister Dr M Abdur Razzaque on Tuesday said the government has taken initiatives to increase the production of Aus paddy this year.
“A target has been fixed to produce 34.85 lakh tonnes of Aus on 13.30 lakh hectares of land across the country this year,” he said while exchanging views on contemporary situation of agriculture at his secretariat office here.
To achieve the target, the government has distributed necessary seeds and fertilizer at free of cost among 4.50 lakh farmers, he said, adding the government has also distributed 15 tonnes of Aus seeds among 3,000 farmers to bring fellow land under Aus cultivation in Moulvibazar district.
Expressing his satisfaction on completion of boro harvest in the haor region, the agriculture minister said, “Hundred percent boro harvest has been completed in the haor region and it is overall 64 percent throughout the country. The rest of the paddy will be harvested within this month.”
Senior Agriculture Secretary M Meshbahul Islam, Additional Secretary Kamlaranjan Das, Additional secretary M Hasanuzzaman Kallol, Director General (Seed) Balai Krishna Hazra, Bangladesh Agricultural Development Corporation (BADC) Chairman Dr Amitabh Sarker, Department of Agricultural Extension (DAE) Director General M Asadullah and Agriculture Information Services Director Kartik Chandra Chakrawarty, among others, attended the meeting.
Regarding boro production, the minister said target has been fixed to produce around 2.05 crore tonnes of boro rice this year, adding that the boro rice production in the last year was 1.96 crore tonnes.
The government also has formulated a roadmap for achieving self-sufficiency in onion and jute production within the next three years and initiatives have been taken to implement it.
