Free water could be of little use

The government effort to provide Aman farmers of northern region with free irrigation is unlikely to be of much use as over 3,000 deep tube wells of Barind Multipurpose Development Authority are inoperative.
This could have an adverse impact on Aman production since the farmers are already worried about the poor rainfall this season.
The government on July 22 said it would provide BMDA with funds to get 277 megawatts of electricity for giving 100 hours of free irrigation to farmers as the farmers in the northern districts failed to prepare Aman seedbeds due to poor rainfall during the last one month.
So far the BMDA has been able to start operation of only 653 out of 3,745 deep tube wells in the northern region, including 103 out of 745 in greater Rangpur.
A BMDA engineer requesting anonymity told The Daily Star that it would take 20-25 more days to make all the deep tube wells operational.
Farmers fear they would miss out on the Aman seedling preparation this season if the irrigation facilities are not made available in 15 days or there is not a substantial amount of rain.
According to the Department of Agriculture Extension, 26 lakh hectares out of 58 lakh hectares of land, targeted for Aman production across the country, are in the 16 Barind districts.
Shashanko Roy, a farmer who owns eight bighas of land at Bodderbazar under Rajarhat upazila in Kurigram district, has cultivated Aman in five bighas this season. He could not cultivate his entire land because of the unusual drought and shortage of money brought in by low boro prices.
Shashanko said, "Price of boro rice in markets is so low that I will not have money to meet the total Aman production cost, including irrigation expenditure. That is why I left three bighas uncultivated."
Abdur Rouf of Dharmodash under Rangpur sadar upazila owns nine bighas of land but he cultivated Aman on five bighas due to financial constraint.
Rouf said, "If there were sufficient rainfall and water, I would have tried to cultivate Aman on my entire land. In the wake of low prices of boro, it has become difficult for me to manage meals for my family members not to mention bearing the irrigation cost for Aman."
Abdur Razzak, a rice trader of Kurigram sadar upazila, said, "In the last boro season farmers incurred loss of about Tk 100 per maund. So it is not easy for them to recover the loss."
The Department of Agriculture Extension this season set a target of 45 lakh tonnes of Aman from 10.44 lakh hectares of land in eight northern districts of greater Rangpur and Dinajpur.
In reality, hardly 5 lakh hectares of land in greater Rangpur and Dinajpur have been brought under Aman cultivation, claimed an agriculturist with the Additional Directorate Office (greater Rangpur and Dinajpur) in Rangpur.
Additional Director of DAE, Rangpur, however, refuted the claim and said, "More than 6 lakh hectares of land has been brought under Aman cultivation."
Hopefully all targeted land in the region would be brought under Aman cultivation if it rains and if BMDA follows the directives of the agriculture ministry about supplementary irrigation, he added.