RAJSHAHI, Jan 17, 2019 (BSS)- Emphasis should be given to the promotion of
less-irrigation consuming cereal crops instead of depending on only Irri-Boro
farming in Barind area to lessen the gradually mounting pressure on
underground water.
Large-scale promotion of less-water consuming crops could be the effective
means of mitigating water-stress condition in the drought-prone Barind area.
There are enormous scopes of increasing the acreage of various low-water
consuming crops like wheat, mustard, lentil, maize and mugdal in the high
Barind tract.
The observation came at a daylong training styled “Quality Paddy and Wheat
Seed Production and Less-water Consuming Crops Farming” held at conference
hall of Barind Multipurpose Development Authority (BMDA) in Rajshahi on
Wednesday.
‘Quality Seed Production, Distribution and Farmers Training Project’ of
BMDA organized the training where more than 60 BMDA sub assistant engineers
and supervisors from Chapainawabganj, Naogaon and host Rajshahi attended.
BMDA Superintending Engineer Dr Abul Kashem and its Executive Engineer
Abdul Latif addressed the meeting as chief and special guests respectively
with Director of the project ATM Rafiqul Islam in the chair.
Chief Scientific Officer of Bangladesh Rice Research Institute Dr Amimul
Islam, District Seed Certification Officer Sirajul Islam, Principal
Scientific Officer of Bangladesh Wheat and Maize Research Institute Dr Ilias
Hossain and Senior Scientific Officer of Bangladesh Agriculture Research
Institute Dr Shakhawat Hossain conducted training sessions as resource
persons.
The meeting was told that wheat could be cultivated on seven to eight
bighas of land with same amount of irrigation-water needed to irrigate one
bigha of Boro rice through soil moisture utilisation and the best uses of the
modern technologies.
Wheat plays an important role in ensuring food security as its consumption
is increasing day by day. But, Bangladesh produces hardly 10 lakh tonnes of
wheat against the demand of around 40 lakh tonnes annually.
The researchers and scientists have urged the field level BMDA staffs to
discharge their duties with utmost sincerity and honesty for boosting quality
seed outputs of paddy and wheat to meet up its gradually increasing demand.
They termed the quality seed as the precondition to enhance agricultural
yield and called upon the field staffs to accelerate its production through
the best uses of high yielding varieties and modern technologies.