Boro yield drop in five years
According to the DAE, five years ago in fiscal year 2017-18, Boro paddy was cultivated on a total of 4.59 lakh hectares of land in Pabna, Sirajganj, Bogura, and Joypurhat districts, which yielded 19.43 lakh tonnes of rice.
Five years later in FY22, the total Boro cultivation in these four districts fell to 4.54 lakh hectares and the yield to 17.54 lakh tonnes of rice.
In 2022, the Boro yield in these districts fell by about 2 lakh tonnes from the previous year's 19.49 lakh tonnes.
According to the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics, the country's total arable land in 2015-16 was 1.14 crore hectares, which decreased by one lakh hectares in five years.
On top of that, farmers have not been seeing the availability of high-yielding hybrid) varieties of rice in the market.
The Bangladesh Rice Research Institute (BRRI) has released 108 new varieties in the last 50 years, of which only seven varieties were hybrids.
Speaking on the matter, Fazlul Islam, chief scientific officer of BRRI, Rajshahi region, said recent releases of hybrid rice varieties, such as BRRI- 89 and BRRI-92, can produce up to 100 tonnes of rice per hectare.
Increasing production costs, declining arable land, and the unavailability of high-yielding rice varieties have contributed to a fall in the country's rice production.
Contacted, Quazi Shahabuddin, former director of the Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies (BIDS), said rice production growth declined sharply from 0.37 per cent in 2014-15 to 0.11 per cent in 2019-20.
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