NETRAKONA, Jan 31, 2023 (BSS) - Farmers are passing their busy times for

transplantation of Boro rice seedlings on their farm lands in all the ten
upazilas of the district during the current month of January.  

Officials of the Department of Agriculture Extension (DAE) said, the DAE has
designed a massive program to produce 7,76,775 tonnes of clean Boro rice from
1,84,470 hectares of land in the district during the current Rabi season.

Under the program, the farmers will produce 2,04,475 tonnes of hybrid variety
of Boro rice from 41,300 hectares of land, 5,72,000 tonnes of high yielding
variety (HYV) of Boro rice from 1,43, 000 hectares and 300 tonnes of local
variety from 170 hectares of land.

Meanwhile, the Boro cultivators have transplanted the Boro rice seedlings on
1,51,409 hectares of land in the district.

The government has provided agricultural incentives to small and marginal
farmers of the district to make them capable to run Boro cultivation without
facing any problem.

Talking to this BSS correspondent, deputy director (DD) of DAE Netrakona
Mohammad Nuruzzaman said, under the agriculture incentive giving program, the
government has already distributed 240 tonnes of improved variety of Boro
seeds , 320 tonnes of MOP and 320 tonnes of DAP fertilizers among the 72,000
small and marginal farmers.

Apart from this, the government has ensured proper supply of improved quality
Boro seeds, fertilizers and other irrigation and agricultural equipment to
the door-steps of the Boro cultivators through different state-run agencies
including BADC and BCIC to help them, he said.

"The government has also been ensuring un-interrupted supply of electricity
through power development board (PDB) and rural electrification board (REB)
to keep the irrigation machineries including deep tube wells and shallow tube
wells of the farmers operative round the clock", he informed.

Following directives of the government, different state-run commercial banks
including Bangladesh Krishi Bank are disbursing Boro crops loan among the
Boro cultivators to assist them for running their Boro cultivation network
without facing financial crisis, the DD said.

 The crops specialists and field-level officials of the DAE are rendering
their field-level service to let the farmers know about the modern methods of
Boro crops cultivation through using latest technologies and reducing
production costs, the deputy director added.