Peasants in trouble as cold wave affecting Boro farming in Sylhet
Our Correspondent | Tuesday, 9 January 2018
SYLHET, Jan 8: The ongoing cold wave has hit the farming of much awaited Boro paddy in greater Sylhet region for the last few days. Especially the Sunamagnj district, which stands on the foot of Indian state of Meghalaya is the worst sufferer, officials informed.
Regional in charge of the Met office in Sylhet Sayeed Ahmed Chowdhury said the cold wave trend would continue for 10 more days.
DAE officials said the ongoing cold wave may affect the Boro seedbed preparation on many areas. The farmers can't work on the field for longer time due to the cold whereas they need to work for hours to preparing the Boro seedbeds as the farming season is passing fast, said Habibur Rahman of Derai upazila Sunday.
It is a new trouble for us, said another farmer Anwar Mia of Tahirpur upazila, already the farmers had been much behind in cultivating the crop due to the late recession of waters from the croplands inside the different haors this year. On the other hand, the Water Development Board (WDB) also couldn't start reconstruction of the different crop protection embankments in the haor region, raising our apprehension about the fate of the much desired crop, said a number of farmers.
The DAE had set the Boro farming target on 4,75,389 hectares in the division. It includes 81,056 hectares in Sylhet, 52,711 hectares in Moulvibazar, 119,0 70 hectares in Habiganj and the highest 2,22,552 hectares in the district of Sunamganj.
However, the crop has so far been cultivated on about 1,25,000 hectares in these districts, informed the Deputy Director of the DAE's divisional office Dr. Mamun Ur Rashid adding, the rising trend of farming of the major crop indicates the farmers now trying to achieve the highest yield this season since they had suffered total crop loss last year.
The common farmers are busy readying the wetlands for Boro farming, but things are being delayed due to inclement weather with cold wave. Same is the situation in many areas of other districts, Dr. Mamun added.
During the last year Boro crop was almost totally devastated by the repeated and early floods and excess rains coupled with rolling down of waters from the upstream in the Indian states of Meghalaya and Assam.