The government has launched 'synchronised cultivation' method in the current Boro season across the country to boost farm mechanisation.
The new method would help farmers use modern farm machinery like rice transplanter which could minimise production costs, said agriculture minister Dr Muhammad Abdur Razzaque.
He said the government allocated Tk 30.20 billion for farm mechanisation project while 284 posts for agricultural engineers were created to ensure proper management and use of machinery for the peasantry.
He made the comments while addressing a programme organised to showcase a plot of synchronised cultivation of Boro rice on 50 acres (20 hectares) of land by rice transplanter at Kendua of Dhanbari in Tangail.
The Department of Agricultural Extension (DAE) arranged the event on Saturday.
DAE has initiated the synchronised cultivation method simultaneously in 61 out of 64 districts in the country under this season's incentive programme, said a press release.
Under the incentive programme, farmers have been provided with hybrid rice seed, fertilisers, saplings and other assistance.
Dr Razzaque said, "Our farmlands are too small to use modern machinery while rice farmers plant saplings on different lands at different times."
He said the new method of cultivation could help use machinery like rice transplanter to plant Boro seedlings.
Farmers could plant seedlings on one acre of land just in one hour and could save Tk 4,500 per acre (Tk 11,115 per hectare) by using the modern rice transplanter, he stated.
The minister expressed the optimism that within the next five years, most of the farmers would use riceplanter to plant seedlings.
DAE director general (DG) Md Asadullah presided over the programme.
Agriculture senior secretary Md Mesbahul Islam, Bangladesh Agricultural Development Corporation (BADC) chairman Md Sayedul Islam and Bangladesh Rice Research Institute (BRRI) DG Md Shahjahan Kabir were also present and spoke.
Synchronised cultivation is a method where rice plantation, harvesting and collecting are performed simultaneously with the help of machine.
In order to plant paddy in this method, seedlings have to be prepared in trays.
The process also ensures the best utilisation of land as rice seedbeds are prepared on trays and rice transplanters are used to plant sapling at the same depth.
A farmer can collect all his crops from the fields as all the paddy will get matured at the same time. Then paddy could be collected and threshed simultaneously with machine.
For these reasons, the use of farm equipment in a 'synchronised manner' will be more facilitated and increased in the coming days, said DAE head Md Asadullah.
By adopting this method, paddy cultivation would take less time, labour and cost with a considerable increase in production, he added.
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