Country reaps more than enough rice to meet known demand

The country reaped an all-time record amount of 34.449 million tonnes of rice from 11.384 million hectares of land in the just-concluded fiscal (2013-14) -- a little more than enough to meet the known demand.    
According to provisional official estimate, the output was up 2.70 per cent over the previous year's. The amount was 33.833 million tonnes in the previous year (2012-13).
According to the Department of Agriculture Extension (DAE), the total hartvest breaks down as 19.1 million-tonne Boro, 2.32 million-tonne Aus and 13.02 million-tonne Aman. Previous year's tallies were 18.778 million, 2.15 million and 12.897 million tonnes respectively.
The average yield is 3.03 tonnes per hectare.
Earlier in 2011, the country produced a record 34.25 million tonnes of rice as against the total known demand for about 31million tonnes to feed its people.
Officials attributed what is dubbed 'silent rice revolution' mainly to increased planted area backed by favourable weather cosnditions, use of high-yielding-variety seeds and government support to the sector in kind: seed, fertilizer and fuel as subsidies.
In the just-past Boro season, farmers harvsted 0.184 million-tonne more crops than the target set at 18.9 million tonnes for the season. About 20,000 hectares of additional lands were also brought under Boro cultivation in the year under cosnsideration.  
The outputs of Aus and Aman also increased by about 0.168 million tonnes and 0.126 million tonnes respectively as compared to the previous year.  
Despite a slight decrease in the acreage of Aman, the production stood at 13.023 million tonnes, a 0.96 percent increase compared to that of the fiscal 2012-2013. Besides the record harvest of Aman, Aus production also increased by 7.78 per cent to 2.326 million tonnes last fiscal as against 2.158 million tonnes in the previous one.
"Favourable weather, use of high-yielding varieties (HYV) of seed, proper use of fertilizer and availability of other agricultural inputs helped the farmers reap the bumper production," said Md. Rafiqul Islam, Deputy Director of DAE.
"We have got, on average, 3.03 tonnes of crops per hectare of land. But in case of Boro, the yield is around 3.97. In many areas production surpassed by 4-5 tonnes per hectare where the hybrid variety is produced," said the DD.
He noted that the production had already surpassed the national demand.
Officials of the DAE and Bangladesh Agricultural Development Corporation (BADC) noted that the use of locally-developed high-yielding varieties of rice and favourable weather conditions helped in the robust Aman and Aus production. BR-11, BRRI Dhan-34, BRRI Dhan-37 and BRRI Dhan-38, Najirshail and Binashail varieties had good yields, they said.
Experts attribute this trend of increase in rice production as an outcome of "cautious decisionmaking by farmers" following huge losses with their vegetable produce caused by political unrest that dogged the later part of the previous year.
Although the total land area decreased slightly, the production increased by about 2.7 per cent.
"The growth in production was achieved by fast adoption of high-yielding crop varieties supported by rapid expansion of irrigation which helped triple production from 11 million tonnes in 1971 to 34.44 million in 2014," said another scientist working in the DAE.
Among the cereals, the country is deemed to have achieved self-sufficiency in rice, thanks to the HYV of the state-run BRRI, Bangladesh Institute of Nuclear Agriculture (BINA) and other government and private research organisations.
Rice, the staple crop, is cultivated in three seasons in Bangladesh styled Aus, Aman and Boro. The seasons contribute 7.0 per cent, 38 per cent and 55 per cent respectively to total rice output, according to the Ministry of Agriculture (MoA).