Unpuddle rice growing gains ground in Barind zone

RAJSHAHI, Dec 08 (BSS): Unpuddle paddy farming has been gaining popularity in the drought-prone Barind area in the last couple of years.
Nawshad Ali, 45, a farmer of Rajarampur village under Godagari upazila, has cultivated BRRI-Dhan 52, a drought-tolerant and short-duration paddy variety, on one bigha of land without puddling this season.
He harvested the paddy a few days ago in presence of field level officials from the Department of Agriculture Extension (DAE).
Nawshad told the news agency that he got 24 maunds yield from the farming field at a cost of only Tk 2,500. He got profit after adopting the new method.
Jalal Uddin, sub-assistant agriculture officer of DAE, said they are encouraging and motivating the farmers towards unpuddle paddy farming in T-Aman season to mitigate the water-stressed condition.
Farmers cultivated paddy on more than one hectare of land during the current season.
While sharing views, some other farmers said they have started unpuddle paddy farming because it gives better results than the conventional method and saves water and labour.
Majority of them were satisfied with the method that it is profitable and labour saving. After getting better yield the farmers have become interested in cultivating paddy in the coming years.
Shafiqul Islam, upazila agriculture officer, said large-scale promotion of unpuddle paddy farming process can lessen the pressure on groundwater in Barind area.
HE SAID unpuddling is the viable option to reduce the unproductive water flows. Water scarcity, common rice cultivation and increasing labour wages trigger searching for such alternative crop establishment methods which can increase water productivity.
Shakhawat Hossain, team leader of OFRD (Barind Station), said there has been an enormous prospect of bringing harvesting intensity coupled with increasing food production through a successful promotion of the Aush-Aman-Lentil-Mungbean cropping pattern.
To maintain a sound soil health, it could be advisable to grow rice especially Brridhan52 using a different system in order to improve compatibility between monsoon rice and upland winter crops.
The newly-innovated farming method has opened up a new door of enormous prospects of food security along with mitigating the crises of irrigation water.
It has been giving satisfactory yield with scanty rainfall and limited irrigation in the Barind area. This would also go well with a shift in economic importance of the winter crops over monsoon rice.
'We are arranging training and other motivational programmes for the farmers to adopt the cropping pattern to boost agricultural production through the best use of modern technologies to feed the gradually increasing population," he added.