Saline tolerant paddy!

Photo: Firoz Gazi / driknews

This encouraging BSS news report was published in all dailies on 18 July, but unfortunately not in the front page, that it deserved! This is a very important development for Bangladesh, given the ever-increasing encroachment of saline waters in our rivers and shores, decreasing land available for paddy plantation. It is a great achievement for the BRRI scientists. Over the decades to come, it will help increase paddy plantation acres and increase our production of paddy to feed our ever-growing population! It is a very commendable achievement and it deserves public national recognition!
As reported, the plantation to sowing life-cycle has been reduced by two weeks compared to BRRI-53 and 54 the fastest growing rice variety! This too will help us in increasing production during the rice season and the possibility of an extra crop may well be realised!
Given the in-shore encroachment of saline water, these saline resistant varieties of paddy, will be god's gift for us made available by our worthy BIRRI scientists! We can now recover more such fallow saline land, and increase rice production.
Hats off to the BIRRI team, who for Bangladesh have been literally: "A friend in need, is a fried indeed"! The nation is indebted to them for this and many more breakthroughs in the agriculture and farming sector, the most important for our agro-based economy!