SYLHET, July 30: Harvest of Aus paddy began this week in some areas of the Sylhet division. Officials said it will be in full swing in a fortnight.
This year Aus paddy was cultivated on 134,024 hectares of land in 4 districts of Sylhet division against the target of 135,090 hectares. It was 127,678 hectares last year.
This year's total area includes, 3428 hectares of local varieties and the rest 130,272 hectares of high yielding varieties.
Of the total 47,020 hectares are in Sylhet, 42,220 hectares in Moulvibazar, 38,335 hectares in Habiganj and 6,420 hectares in Sunamganj district. DAE sources informed average production is good as yet. The total production would be about 335,236 tonnes.
With a view to recouping the crop loss of last Boro season, an incentive programme for 28,100 poor farmers in 25 selected upazilas of the division was taken up during this Aus season. Among them, 25,000 farmers were given HYV Boro seeds while 3100 got Nerika variety seeds.
These selected farmers were given incentive in seed and fertiliser, informed the Additional Director of the DAE, Sylhet division Md. Sadir Uddin. Under the programme, each of the farmers got 15 kg seed of HYV or Nerika varieties of Aus paddy in addition to 40 kg fertiliser for one bigha land, he added. Tk 379,84,890 were spent under the incentive programme in the division, the official told this correspondent. Of the total Tk 1,57,09,890 were spent in Habiganj Tk 1,08,00,000 in Moulvibazar and Tk 1,14,75,000 were spent in Sunamganj district.
iqbal1527@hotmail.com
