Farmers disheartened by chaffy paddy grains

OUR CORRESPONDENT

CHANDPUR , June 25: At least 50 farmers at four villages in Nayergaon Uttar union under Matlab Dakhsin upazila have been passing days amid great anxiety as their paddy plants have grown sheaves that are mostly sterile having little or no grains inside.

The plight has put the paddy growers in an uncertainty about the yield and in persistent tension on how to run families in case of failure to harvest expected amount of rice from the fields.

Seeing the empty or unpollinated grains in the sheaves, the farmers are suspecting that the seeds producing the paddy plants might have been adulterated.

In good faith, they had bought paddy seeds of hybrid PNR variety from a local trader at a cost of Tk550 per maund. They were assured by the trader that they would get around 100 maunds of paddy per acre. So they had a big dream of getting a bumper paddy yield.

But now after four months of transplanting seedlings from seedbeds, paddy plants have

grown sheaves that mostly have chaffy grains inside.

The four villages where farmers have experienced the ordeal are Nandikhola, Govindapur, Kachiara and Bokchar.

Talking to the FE, many affected farmers said they bought a new variety of hybrid paddy seeds branded as PNR from a local trader.

After preparing seedbeds, they planted seedlings and took a good care of fields expecting 100 maunds of yield per acre. After four months, it was observed that the paddy plants became mature enough but the sheaves that were growing contained no full grains inside.

Thus their hopes and expectations have been dashed off alongside the thought that the seeds might have been adulterated or spurious either.

During a visit, farmer Ayesha Begum (35) of Nandikhola village told this correspondent that she was too much worried and in a great anxiety for the situation.

She sawed the new variety of paddy seeds on 2.5 acres of her land. But no paddy has been found insides sheaves, although four months have already passed away.

Same sorrows and resentments were expressed by other farmers - Mizanur Rahman, Alhaj Jamal Mia, Golam Mostafa, Masud Alam and Abul Kalam.

They said that around Tk65,000 was spent for cultivating this new variety of paddy on each acre of land. They also said around 70 acres of land were brought under this new variety of paddy.

Upon getting complaints, marketing officer of the paddy seeds' company PNR, Md Obaidur Rahman, visited the paddy fields and then the affected farmers were assured of giving some compensation to recoup their losses.

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