Speakers at a roundtable on Tuesday emphasised the need for using balanced fertilisers for enhancing soil fertility to boost crop production in active flood plains and charlands of Bangladesh. They particularly stressed natural vermin-compost and organic nutrients. The Independent and International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), Bangladesh, jointly organised the roundtable discussion at BEL Tower in the city.
Bangladesh Agricultural Research Council (BARC) executive chairman Wais Kabir, IRRI representative for Bangladesh Dr Mohammad Zainul Abedin, project director of Food Security Programme-2006 (soil fertility component project) Khandker Moyeenuddin, managing editor of The Independent Shahnoor Wahid, Bangladesh Bank deputy general manager Mohammad Ibrahim Bhuiyan, senior programme specialist of SAARC agriculture centre Dr Nurul Alam, chief scientific officer of Soil Research Development Institute Nazmul Hasan, senior programme specialist of SAARC agriculture centre Tayan Raj Gurung, country director of Hunger Free World Ataur Rahman Miton, senior programme officer of Food Security Programme-2006 (soil fertility component project) Dr Taiabur Rahman and Actionaid deputy manager Shamsun Naima Rahman spoke at the roundtable.
Two farmers, Abdul Baset of Suzanagar in Pabna and Abdul Quader from Ullapara in Sirajganj, shared their experiences about growing crops using the vermin-compost and compost fertilisers.
Farming systems agronomist of IRRI, Maksudur Rahman, presented the keynote paper on ‘Soil fertility enhancement to boost production in active floodplains and charlands of Bangladesh’.
Speakers emphasised the need for using compost and vermin-compost fertilisers for improvement of soil health.
Wais Kabir, as the chief guest, said Bangladesh’s agricultural sector was exploiting its natural resources. “It is very much normal to create pressure on natural resources because of increases in cropping intensity. We have to go through environment, development and production, admitting the impact of some ecological aspects,” he observed.
The BARC chief said, “We have to use community-based organic fertilisers to increase soil fertility as well as for increasing production. We should be less dependent on ground water for the sake of the environment. Thousands of water-lifting pumps (shallow machines) are exploiting the ground water. We should introduce minimum tillage and minimum use of water.”
Dr Mohammad Zainul Abedin said, “Let us feed the soil, the soil will feed the plants, and the plants will feed us.” Farmers should grow crops using land both in vertical and horizontal ways, he added.
Maksudur Rahman said in his keynote paper that nutrients content of the soils of Bangladesh was becoming more and more imbalanced as a result of unplanned fertilizer management practices. As a result, cropping intensity is constantly increasing, he observed. “Agriculture has now become fertiliser-dependent from soil-dependent. Farmers’ intentions are to produce more yields by using more fertilisers,” the keynote paper added.
The keynote paper further said, “Farmers have to be encouraged to use balanced fertilisers, green manure, compost and vermin-compost in the soil for the crops and cropping pattern, which will act as an insurance against possible nutrient deficiencies. It can play a vital role in sustaining soil fertility and productivity on a long-term basis.”
In his keynote paper, Rahman noted that imbalanced use of fertilizers represents ‘soil mining’ as against ‘soil building’, which results from balanced fertilisation and other soil fertility management practices. “Soil test-based fertilizer use is one of the ways for minimising this yield gap. Farmers of Bangladesh are not yet fully aware of the benefits of the soil test-based balanced fertilizer use. Farmers normally use excessive urea or in most of the cases at the recommended doses,” he further said.
-With The Independent input
