BRAC developing short-matured rice seeds

FE Team | Published: September 26, 2008 00:00:00 | Updated: February 01, 2018 00:00:00

FE Report
BRAC, the largest non-governmental organisation (NGO), has started an agricultural research to develop a paddy that can be grown in a short period and in varied conditions, its top official said.
"We're mainly focusing on development of seeds that will produce rice within a short time so that the land could be used for cultivating three crops a year everywhere," executive director of BRAC Dr. Mahbub Hossain told the FE.
BRAC, the world's largest NGO, has started the research to promote the quality seeds under a project "Crop intensification and diversification project" at a cost of Tk10 million aiming to ensure food security in the country.
"Bangladesh as an agrarian country is facing food insecurity for feeding its nearly 150 million people. Our main vision is to develop rapidly growing diversified crops in existing land for ensuring food security," said Mr. Hossain, a former official of the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI).
Bangladesh produces about 28 to 30 million tonnes of food grains per year. It needs to import further 1.0 million tonnes for meeting local demand.
Mr. Hossain said: "We are trying to produce three types of crops on a land within a year, leaving the November-February period for winter crops."
"We've already started the research work taking pilot projects in some monga-prone northern districts and southwestern coastal belt. Most of the land there is used for cultivation of one or two crops," he said.
Citing example, Mr. Hossain said if we could cut the cultivation period of Boro rice though inventing the new fast growing seeds we can cultivate winter crops within November-February period and then could go for planting Aman seeds in early March.
He said some farmers in Bogra district in the last Boro season cultivated one kind of rice, which was harvested within a short period.
"Our research team has procured the rice seeds and is experimenting on it," the ED of the World's largest NGO said.
The ongoing research will continue up to March this year.
Bangladesh in FY08 produced some 29.5 million tonnes of food grains despite a loss of 2.0 million tonnes of Aman and Aus rice due to recurrent floods and devastating cyclone Sidr.
The country in FY2008 imported nearly 2.25 million tonnes of rice, which is 1.536 million tonnes higher than that in 2006-07, Bangladesh Bank (BB) statistics showed.
It spent US$859.49 million to import rice during July-June period of 2007-08, up from $686.6 million in 2006-07, the central bank said.