The ministry of agriculture has drastically slashed the incentives for marginal aus farmers in the current season. The agriculture ministry has approved Tk 30.68 core for the current aus season down from 43.09 crore in the previous season in 2013, shows official documents.
The aus season begins in March and ends in August.Agriculturists said that the government should increase the aus acreage if it wants to expand rain fed rice cultivation.
Increased aus acreage would reduce dependence on groundwater for raising irrigated boro rice.
Farmers described slashing Tk 12.41 crore from the fund for providing incentives to the marginal growers as ‘impractical and counterproductive.’
They said that the fund was used to provide seeds, fertilizers and cash to the marginal farmers to keep them interested in growing rain fed aus.
This year 2,44,600 marginal farmers in 44 districts would get the incentives down from last year’s 3,32,500, field service officers of the Department of Agriculture Extension told New Age on Thursday.
For growing aus rice on each bigha of land, this season each of the 2,44,600 marginal farmers would be entitled to get free of cost 20 kg of urea, 10kg of DAP, 10 kg of MOP fertilizers and 10 kg of Nerica rice seeds from Africa and five kg of local HYV rice seeds said an agri ministry document.
Besides, each farmer will also be entitled to get Tk 300 in cash for growing Nerica rice, said officials.
Sher-e-Bangla Agriculture University associate professor of agronomy Abdullahil Baque told New Age that the government should increase cropping intensity and go for alternative cropping for better results
Bangladesh needs no imported drought tolerant rice variety like nerica when it has developed several drought resistant varieties at home, he said.
This season the government set the target of aus acreage at 11.60 lakh hectares up from last year’s 10.51 lakh hectares.
The production target for the current season has been set at 24.28 lakh tones, up from last year’s 23.26 lakh tonnes.
-With New Age input
