Farmers coming back to wheat
Farmers are slowly returning to wheat cultivation, encouraged by higher yields and good prices in recent years, farmers and agricultural analysts said.
Wheat acreage increased to 4.37 lakh hectares in fiscal 2014-15 from 4.29 lakh hectares a year earlier, according to Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics.
Last fiscal year, total wheat output increased 3.45 percent year-on-year to 13.48 lakh tonnes, enabling the country to meet nearly one-third of its annual domestic demand for the cereal and cut back on imports. The country has to meet two-thirds of its yearly requirement at 45 lakh tonnes through imports due to inadequate domestic production.
In fiscal 2014-15, 37.74 lakh tonnes of wheat were imported, which cost nearly Tk 8,000 crore, according to data from the food ministry and Bangladesh Bank.
The domestic consumption is rising, so from this perspective, the increase in acreage and production is a positive sign, said Mahabub Hossain, chairperson of Brac University's department of economics and social sciences. This was the third consecutive year of rebound in wheat area, which fell to its lowest in fiscal 2011-12 to 3.58 lakh hectares amid farmers' shift to other winter crops such as maize, potato and vegetables to rake in higher profits.
Ashraf Ali Sarker, a wheat grower in Rajshahi, said a section of farmers had earlier shifted to pulses and other crops because of falling yields of Kanchon, once a popular wheat variety.
“We incurred losses at that time, but now we are making profits.”
Wheat production has now increased owing to cultivation of one of the newer varieties, namely Pradip.
Now, growers get 14-15 maunds of wheat from each bigha from 8-9 maunds a decade ago, according to Sarker.
Farmers are giving up on sugarcane cultivation because of its low prices and long duration of maturity, he said.
Agricultural officials and analysts also attributed the revival of cultivation to rising popularity of some stress-tolerant high-yielding varieties (HYVs) of wheat, released by the Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute (BARI) in recent years.
Since 2009, BARI released six HYVs of wheat, most of which are heat-tolerant. One variety, BARI Gom 25, is both heat- and saline-tolerant, while some others mature in a short period.
The government's purchases from the domestic market and the lower costs of production than other winter crops have also encouraged farmers to return to wheat, the acreage of which hit 8.82 lakh hectares in fiscal 1998-99, the highest in the last two and a half decades.
So far, wheat cultivation has expanded in Dinajpur, Thakurgaon, Panchagarh and Pabna districts, but Faridpur and southern districts Barisal and Bhola are not far behind, said Paritosh Kumar Malaker, director in-charge of the wheat research centre at BARI.
The recent varieties are better resistant to pest attacks than the previous popular varieties, he said, adding that they can also tolerate stress, particularly heat and salinity.
“That's why wheat cultivation is rising,” he added.
Ahsanur Rahman, a farmer in Thakurgaon district, said he grew wheat on five acres of land last winter after incurring losses from potato. A year earlier, he devoted only 1.5 acres to the grain.
There has been interest among farmers to grow saline-tolerant wheat, said MA Sattar Mandal, a former vice-chancellor of Bangladesh Agricultural University.
The rise in mechanisation in agriculture has also given impetus to farmers to grow the cereal, he said.
The use of reaper has reduced the labour requirements to harvest wheat.
The turnaround time from harvesting one crop to plantation of another crop has also declined owing to mechanised tilling, Mandal said.
Farmers can cultivate the late variety of boro rice after harvesting short-duration wheat varieties, he said, adding that the production of the cereal may cross 15 lakh tonnes in the next couple of years.
The job now is to make the farmers aware of the new varieties and ensure their quick access to the seeds of these varieties, he added.
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