A ray of hope for farmers

Flood-tolerant varieties of aman have brought new hope to at least 130 flood affected farmers of eight char villages at the Teesta river basin in Sadar upazila.  

Under a project titled STRASA of International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), the flood-hit growers were given seeds of flood-tolerant aman varieties -- BRRI-11, BRRI-12, BRRI-51 and BRRI-52 -- free of cost by RDRS Bangladesh, a non-governmental organisation (NGO).   

Flood affected farmer Ashraf Ali of Char Kalmati village said “I cultivated BRRI-52 on my four bighas of land submerged under water for 15-20 days this year and lost hope of good production, but finally I got 68 maunds of paddy from the fields.”

Saiful Islam, agriculture technical officer of RDRS Bangladesh, said when it was found that the farmers had no flood-tolerant aman seeds, they distributed the seeds free of cost.

“We also provided technical support to char farmers during farming of the flood-tolerant aman variety paddy,” he said.