SYLHET, Sept 18: The total yield of Aus crop has been estimated to be 420,872 tonnes of rice in Sylhet division this season, an official informed this afternoon as harvest of the crop ended last week.
It includes 138,397 tonnes from the 55,385 hectares of land in Sylhet, 127,516 tonnes from the 48,185 hectares in Moulvibazar, 120,579 tonnes from the 46,604 hectares in Habiganj and the rest 34,380 tonnes from 13,490 hectares in Sunamganj district, the official added.
However, crops on another 6,416 hectares of lands were damaged during the season due to excess rains and flash floods at the beginning of the cropping season.
The farmers had cultivated 170,077 hectares, about 97 per cent of the targeted 174,824 hectares, the DAE official informed.
The DAE in the last year had to revise the division's target from its initial area of 133,028 hectares to 176,919.
However, the total Aus paddy cultivated area stood at 170, 782 hectares that season.
Compared to other regions, Aus farming in this region start a late, the official said, this is why harvest also gets delayed.
The official at the DAE's divisional office informed, under the incentive programme, 30,000 bighas of land were cultivated against the last year's 25,700 bighas.
It includes 9,000 bighas in each of Sylhet, Moulvibazar and Habiganj districts and 3,000 bighas in Sunamganj district.
The total amount includes, Tk 159,75000 for each of Sylhet, Moulvibazar and Habiganj districts while Tk 4792,500 is for Sunamganj district.
For each bigha land a farmer was supplied 5.0 kg seed, 20 kg urea, 10 kg DAP, 10 kg MoP fertiliser, the source informed.
Besides, Tk 11641,115 were spent in incentive for the selected marginal farmers of three districts for cultivating Nerika paddy.
It includes, Tk 1887,750 for 900 farmers of Sylhet, Tk 2517,000 for 1200 in Moulvibazar and Tk 7236,375 for 3450 in Habiganj.
The amount was spent for seed, fertilisers and others' assistance.
Besides, separate amount was given for clearing weeds, the official informed.
According to the reports from districts the per hectare yield stood at 2.94 tonens of rice from the hybrid while it was 2.6 tonnes from high yielding varieties and 1.31 tonnes from the local varieties this season, the official added.
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