The boro production is likely to be less this year than that of the last year as the production acreage of the main crop was below the government’s target,
officials of Department of Agriculture Extension said.
They said the government had already started distribution of seeds and fertilisers among the marginalised farmers free of cost to encourage them to cultivate aus in order to make up the shortfall in the boro rice production.
DAE officials said that the field service wing of the department had so far recorded about 34 per cent of boro harvest across the country till on April 24 and the rate of production of the crop was satisfactory.
The harvesting of boro has started mainly in some haor (water body) areas including Sylhet, Sunamganj, Netrokona, Kishoreganj and Sherpur districts.
The DAE officials, however, said that the production target for this season might not be achieved as 47.53 lakh hectares of land were brought under boro cultivation against the target of 47.80 lakh hectares for the current season.
The government set a target of production of boro rice at 187.60 lakh tonnes for this year.
The government had set a target of boro cultivation on 48.10 lakh hectares of land in the 2011-12 season, but farmers had cultivated boro on 48.17 lakh hectares of land, DAE records showed.
Some 187.59 lakh tonnes of rice were produced in the 2011-12 boro season, the records showed.
DAE deputy director (monitoring) Mohammad Rafiqul Hasan told New Age on Wednesday that the growers cultivated boro on around 30,000 hectares of land this season which was less than the target but they added 70,000 hectares of land to wheat cultivation in the period.
The government earlier estimated that the average production of boro rice would be 3.92 tonnes per hectare of land in the current season, he said.
Meanwhile, the government has started giving cash incentives to 3,32,500 marginalised farmers of 47 districts to cultivate aus this season.
Each of the selected farmers would receive aus seeds and fertilisers including urea, DAP and MOP.
According to the DAE, the target of aus acreage for 2013-14 has been set at 11.55 lakh hectares up from 10.50 lakh hectares in the previous season.
Aus season begins in mid March.
BR-24, BR-26, BRRI Dhan-27, 42, 43 and 48 are among the best aus high yielding varieties, said agriculturists.
-With New Age input
