Adequate rainfall forecast raises hope for better rice output

---

Nizam Ahmed
Bangladesh hopes to grow more rice in the coming months as the meteorological department has forecast adequate rainfall due to an upcoming normal monsoon, officials said Wednesday.
"A normal monsoon in general terms, neither dumps excessive rain nor trickles few showers than the average, is likely during the period from June to September," Ms Farah Deeba, a meteorologist at the Bangladesh Meteorological Department (BMD) told the FE.
A normal monsoon generally brings in adequate rain, that helps farmers to maintain cultivation without any risk of floods or drought, an official at the department of agriculture extension (DAE) said.
Bangladesh, the world's fourth-biggest rice producer, produces more than 34 million tonnes of rice, nearly sufficient to feed its estimated 150 million people.
"If the monsoon behaves normally, farmers will be able to sow Aman seeds followed by transplantation of the seedlings in time by mid-July," a senior agriculture expert said.
Timely plantation and adequate rain play a great role in yield of Aman. Aus paddy is also cultivated almost at the same time.
Aman and Aus varieties of paddy constitute nearly half of the countries annual rice production of some 34 million tonnes of rice, the DAE official added.
The monsoon wind carrying rain is expected to spread across the county by the first half of June to trigger a normal spell of rain, the BMD said in its forecast for the period of May to July.
"The rice production in the fiscal year 2011-12 to June, is likely to be 35 million tonnes including 18.7 million tonnes of just-harvested Boro paddy," Mukul Chandra Roy, a director of DAE said.
The target for the FY 2012-13 will be estimated later, Roy said.
In the 2011 calendar year, the country produced a record 34.25 million tonnes of rice, up 3.16 per cent from the yield in the previous year, following favourable weather and continued government farm subsidies.
According to the BMD forecast, monsoon depressions are likely to be formed in the Bay of Bengal at least for two occasions in June, the forecast said.
The monsoonal depression often dump heavy rain with strong wind in coastal areas, but the wind speed does not cross the proportion of cyclones which generally brew in the Bay of Bengal during April-May and in August-November period, meteorologists said.
According to the forecast, the normal rainfall is also expected in July, when one of two similar monsoon depressions like that of June may dump adequate rain across the country.
The prevailing hot-spell over the northwest and central regions parts of the country and high temperatures elsewhere is likely to come to a tolerable level when monsoon wind will arrive and trigger almost regular rain fall across the country during the rainy season that lasts until end-August, the forecast said.
Ahead of the arrival of monsoon rain the prevailing heat-wave and high-temperature are likely to continue across the country in the current month when one of two tropical depressions is likely to brew in the Bay of Bengal and at least one of the depressions may turn into to tropical storm, the forecast said.
During the current month the river flow is likely to remain normal across the country, but in case of heavy down-pour rivers in the northwest and northeast regions are likely to trigger flash floods, the forecast said.
But such flash floods won't make farmers worried as the harvest of Boro paddy is nearing completion. But land-brewed tropical storms known as "kalboishakhi" are likely to damage homestead and social forests in the country during the month, DAE officials said.
Meanwhile, the rainfall in April was 40 per cent more than the normal and a number of hail-storms hit different areas along with heavy rains. However, the level of destruction of properties including standing crops were minimal.