Govt sets rice production target at 36.4m tonnes

The government has set the rice production target at 36.4 million tonnes for the current fiscal year (2018-19) with an emphasis on high yielding variety (HYV), reports BSS.

The target has been set to produce 29.8 million tonnes of high yielding variety in the current year against last year's production of nearly 30 million tonnes, officials said.

They said the Department of Agricultural Extension (DAE) already has sent the proposed crop production target to the Agriculture Ministry for final approval.

As per the target, 2.7 million tonnes of Aus rice will be produced in FY19, against 14.1 million tonnes of Aman and 19.6 million tonnes of Boro.

Of the total targeted rice output, 4.66 million tonnes are hybrid, almost 29.8 million tonnes high-yielding variety and the remaining 1.6 million tonnes are local variety rice.

Director General (DG) of the Department of Agricultural Extension (DAE) Mohammad Mohsin told the news agency that they are confident to achieve the food production target if there is no natural disaster in the country.

Citing an example of Aus and Aman production, the DAE chief said, "We had set a target to produce Aus on 1.12 million hectares of land across the country but we produced rice on 11,52,225 hectares."