RAJSHAHI, July 16 (BSS): The newly paddy varieties invented by BRRI have opened up a door of enormous prospects in food security along with mitigating the crises of irrigation water in all the eight districts of Rajshahi division.
Dr Shakhawat Hossain, senior scientific officer of Bangladesh Agriculture Research Institute, Rajshahi said BRRI released seven drought tolerant varieties and some of those have gained popularity among the farmers during the last couple of years.
He said there has been an enormous prospect of bringing harvesting intensity coupled with increasing food production through a successful promotion of the developed varieties.
Talking to the news agency on Tuesday, Dr Aminul Islam, chief scientific officer of BRRI, said the BRRI Dhan-48 variety has been gaining popularity among the farmers in the vast Barind tract for the last couple of years.
It has been giving satisfactory yield with scanty rainfall and limited irrigation during the Aus season in the area.
The farmers are seen interested towards cultivating the newly developed variety in the vast Barind tract as part of their effort to mitigating the adverse impacts of climate change.
Farmers have brought 2,37,958 hectares of land under Aus paddy cultivation in all eight districts under Rajshahi division during the current season.
The Department of Agriculture Extension (DAE) had set a target to bring a total of 2,59,591 hectares of land fixing production target of 6,98,491 tonnes of rice in the division.
Dev Dulal Dhali, additional director of DAE, said a total of 39,200 farmers got incentives of seed and fertiliser for the cultivation of Aus paddy on 39,200 bigha of lands in all the eight districts.
He says most of the beneficiary farmers were given seed of BRRIdhan-48, a drought tolerant paddy variety innovated by Bangladesh Rice Research Institute (BRRI).
Each of the farmers got 15 kg Di-ammonium Phosphate (DAP) fertilisers, 10 kg Muriate of Potash (MoP) and 5.0 kg of Aus seeds.
To maintain sound soil health, it could be advisable to grow rice using a different system in order to improve compatibility between monsoon rice and upland winter crops.
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