Floods affect crops of 2 lakh hectares

Ongoing floods have inundated 2 lakh hectares of land containing transplanted aman in 23 districts, posing a threat to the livelihoods of hundreds of paddy farmers. 

The onrush of water from upstream has also inundated vegetables on 20,000 hectares of land, said a senior official of the Department of Agricultural Extension (DAE) yesterday.

Aman makes the second biggest contribution to the country's rice production after boro, accounting for 38 percent of the annual production of 3.47 crore tonnes recorded in 2015-16.

The DAE officials said a part of the transplanted aman could be saved if the water recedes within two to three days of the inundation.

If the water stays longer, the crops are likely to be affected. But the vegetables cannot be recovered, according to some agriculturists.

Water in the rivers upstream started to recede yesterday.

The water level in the Brahmaputra is likely to become steady in the next 24 hours while that in the Jamuna and Padma may continue to rise in the next 24 hours and 72 hours respectively.

That in the Surma-Kushiyara is likely to continue to fall in the next 48 hours, according to the Flood Forecasting and Warning Centre yesterday morning.

The DAE officials said the water level in rivers in Dinajpur, Thakurgaon and Lalmonirhat declined whereas it rose in those in districts such as Rangpur and Sirajganj.

“We are taking stock of the situation every three hours. We have asked field level officials and workers to stay at their stations and monitor the situation by opening control rooms,” said DAE Director General Md Golam Maruf.

The DAE also advised farmers to harvest aus if 80 percent of the grain has matured.

Harvested during the monsoon, aus has been planted on 10.79 lakh hectares of land this year, up from 9.41 lakh hectares in 2016-17, according to data from the DAE and the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics.

The DAE has targeted to grow aman in 53.05 lakh hectares in 2017-18. Farmers bagged 1.36 crore tonnes of aman rice in 2016-17, according to the BBS.

Maruf said the DAE has aman seedlings on 50 acres at hand to meet emergency needs of farmers. “We also have enough seeds of late varieties of paddy in our stock that can support farmers,” he said.

Agronomists said seedlings which have been recently transplanted most likely could not be recovered. But growers who planted submergence tolerant varieties might not be affected that much.

Md Ansar Ali, director for research of the Bangladesh Rice Research Institute, said the submergence tolerant varieties of aman can withstand inundation for up to 10 days.  

“A lot will depend on how long the flood lingers. The flood water from Nepal is yet to enter Bangladesh, and we do not know at the moment how many days the submergence will persist,” he said.

He, however, said there was still time to transplant aman. “What we need to do is to make seedlings available to farmers in the affected areas. If we can do that, there will not be that much of an impact,” said Ali.

This is the second time this year that the country's major crops have been hit by calamities.

In April, flooding in the northeastern haor areas damaged 10 lakh tonnes of Boro crop, according to an estimate of the US Department of Agriculture.