Farmers urged to cultivate BRRI Dhan-52 in Gaibandha

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GAIBANDHA Nov 25, 2020 (BSS)- Agri experts at a function here have urged the farmers to cultivate flood tolerant BRRI Dhan-52 on their land at larger scale to avoid losses and to get desired output against the crop to attain the sustainable food security of the country.

“As our country has been experiencing an abnormal climate change in recent years due to geographical setting creating a grave concern to agriculture, food, human health, livelihood, soil, environment and bio diversity, there is no alternative to farm flood tolerant and climate resilient paddy copying with climate change” they said.

They made the comments while addressing a function on field day of sample crop cutting of BRRI Dhan-52 at Kamla Bazar area under Gidari union of Sadar upazila in the district on Tuesday.

Sustained Opportunities for Nutrition Governance (SONGO) project being implemented here by RDRS Bangladesh and ICCO Cooperation with the financial support of European union arranged the field day on sample crop cutting of BRRI dhan 52.

Deputy director(DD) of the Department of Agriculture Extension(DAE) agriculturist Masudur Rahman attended the function and addressed it as the chief guest and sadar upazila agriculture officer Al Imran was present at the event as the special guest while Mostafa Nurul Islam Reza, operation lead, SONGO project, ICCO Cooperation, presided over the ceremony and Shamim Alom, inclusive business development advisor conducted the function as moderator.

The Speakers in their speeches said the Gaibandha district is a flood prone area and every year the district experiences devastating floods creating untold sufferings to the people, side by side with damaging the transplanted Aman seedlings making the farmers more worried about their food security.

As the seedlings of BRRI dhan-52 are not damaged even after remaining under flood water over two weeks the agri experts suggested the farmers of flood prone areas to cultivate flood tolerant verities to get rid of the losses caused by floods.

Later, the guests accompanying the SONGO project officials including local farmers cut the paddy in presence of all.

After cutting the variety it is known that over 20 maunds of paddy were produced from a bigha of land.

Farmer Mahbubur Rahman expressed his gratefulness to the project officials for setting up a demonstration on the variety at his land and thanked them for getting desired output against the crop.

As the production of the variety is satisfactory and there is no possibility to get damaged the transplanted seedlings despite remaining it under the flood water over 15 days the farmers coming from nearby areas also expressed their willing to farm the variety on their land in next seasons.

A large number of farmers, NGO activists and local elite including journalists were present on the occasion.

BSS/CORR/MR/MMA/1346HRS