Scanty rain forces farmers to irrigate fields

Farmers, particularly up north, have taken up irrigation to transplant aman seedlings and water the fields that have already been cultivated amid scanty rainfall this monsoon.

The ongoing dry weather has raised fears that they would be unable to take care of their crop properly, which would then affect the yields of aman rice. Aman accounts for 38 percent of the annual rice production.

“We hope it will rain soon,” said ASM Sishnabi Mandal, a grower in Dinajpur.

Mandal, who has cultivated aman on over two acres of land, said he and his neighbours had to depend on water pumps to irrigate fields before transplanting seedlings this monsoon.

“If the situation does not change in two to three weeks, we will have a problem,” he added.

But irrigation increases the production costs for growers.

Mohammad Motaleb, a small farmer in Kaunia of the northwest district Rangpur, has already spent over Tk 2,000 for irrigation to prepare 38 decimals out of his 75 decimals of land for transplantation of aman seedlings.

At the same time, the labour cost has been high at Tk 400. “Our cost is rising but the prices of paddy are not rising to that extent,” he added.

Md Shahjahan Kabir, director general of the Bangladesh Rice Research Institute (BRRI), said this is the period of vegetative growth of paddy and the yield would be affected in the absence of proper vegetative growth.

“We are suggesting farmers start irrigating fields without waiting for rainfall,” he said, adding that irrigation pumps under the Barind Multipurpose Development Authority in the northwest have started to help farmers irrigate their fields. Water is also being brought in through Teesta barrage to increase the flow in rivers in the Rangpur region, he added.

Muhammad Abul Kalam Mallik, a meteorologist at the Bangladesh Meteorologist Department, said rainfall is likely to increase from tomorrow but the intensity may be low.

The Bangladesh Meteorologist Department in its yesterday's forecast said light to moderate rain or thunder showers accompanied by temporary gusty wind is likely to occur at many places over Khulna, Barisal, Chittagong, Sylhet and Dhaka divisions and a few places over Rangpur, Rajshahi and Mymensingh  divisions.

Mild heat wave is sweeping over the Rangpur division and the regions of Rajshahi, Pabna, Bogra, Dhaka, Mymensingh, Sylhet and Chuadanga and it may abate.

“We see rains but it is too scanty to make the earth wet,” said Bhutto Mia, a grower at Fulchhari in Gaibandha district.

Inadequate rainfall will lead to a rise in weeds in the field and a risk pest infestation, he added.

Farmers are crying out for water to irrigate croplands a year after many of them suffered for floods.

At this time last year, floods submerged croplands and neighbourhoods up north.

The Department of Agricultural Extension has targeted transplantation of aman paddy on 53 lakh hectares this year.

So far, plantation has been completed on 66 percent of the area, said DAE Director General Mohammad Mohsin, adding that transplantation has almost been completed in north Bengal, the country's main crop zone.