Modern paddy farming services kick off in Biral

Around noon on Tuesday, a small crowd of farmers gathered near a paddy field in Chawkerhaat village of Biral upazila.

They were watching in awe as a strange-looking equipment was being moved around in a paddy field and paddy seedlings were being transplanted mechanically in the muddy field. 

Local farmer Ashraf Ali said he never saw anything like that in his life and the tedious and laborious task of sowing seedlings in paddy fields has been done manually by farmers like him for generations.

After seeing how swiftly seedlings were being planted in the field, he said he would also like to get his hands on such a paddy transplanting machine for his own land because profit margin of rice farmers has been plummeting due to rising cost of farm labourers. 

The land where the mechanised paddy transplanting machines were being used belongs to farmer Motiur Rahman.

After eight years of producing rice on his 300 acres of land, following conventional methods, and at the same time, looking for ways to lower the cost of production, Motiur this year has decided to try out a service that would enable him to meet the objective. 

The trial run of mechanised paddy transplanting machines in his paddy field was part of a service package that he is availing from two organisations -- Rural Development Academy (RDA), Bogura, a specialized national institution engaged in rural development-related training, research and action research; and Agriplus Limited (APL), a private organisation.  

Bangladesh Agricultural Development Corporation and Department of Agricultural Extension in Dinajpur will oversee the entire process.

Under the service package, RDA, with support from APL, used modern machinery to prepare seedbed, collect seedlings and prepare the main paddy field for sowing, said farmer Motiur. 

This Tuesday, RDA brought in two mechanised paddy transplanting machines and each of the machines takes an hour to sow seedlings in one acre of land.

From making seedbeds till the sowing of seedlings in the field, the cost incurred per acre in conventional method is around Tk 6,000, whereas he is paying RDA and APL Tk 4,000 for the same process.

The conventional method is expensive and time-consuming, but through the use of modern technology, he is saving Tk 2,000 per acre.

He would bear the expenses of tending and irrigating the paddy until it is ripe and he would make an additional payment to RDA for harvesting the paddy using their harvester machine, Motiur added. 

RDA Director General Aminul Islam, who was present in Chawkerhaat village on Tuesday, said at a time when the country is facing a shortage in manpower, it is no longer profitable to cultivate paddy in the conventional method.

The use of modern machinery in paddy farming can cut down the cost and increase production -- by approximately two to three times. 

They have been successfully applying mechanised methods of paddy farming at a village in Kurigram, he also said.