Development of agricultural land has become a major issue in our country. Increasing salinity of agricultural lands in the southern region of the country is rendering them inapt for farming and their productivity has gradually been decreasing. To tackle this, the government has taken a 10-year master plan to bring fallow and uncultivated land under farming to grow additional food grains under the plan.
Farmers in the southern parts of our country are losing interest in cultivating lands and this is happening due to the tidal salinity of land. In the country, every year millions of hectares of land remain uncultivated. As per the report published in this daily on Monday, 10 lakh 56 thousands hectares of uncultivated land infiltrated by brackish water in the country can be brought under cultivation if the government’s initiative is implemented successfully in the next 10 years.
If the large acreage of fallow land is
brought under cultivation, the country’s
food deficiency will be greatly reduced
The 57826-crore Taka mega plan will change the landscape of our agricultural sector. Crops are not cultivated in the areas where salinity concentrations are high. Therefore, if the large amount of fallow land is brought under cultivation, the country’s food deficiency will be greatly reduced.
Government should make sure that new techniques like farm ponds, pitcher irrigation, two-tiered mulch, watermelon cultivation by planting polybag saplings, wheat cultivation by sowing or changing planting time, etc., is introduced. Government can make these techniques widespread among farmers through awareness campaigns and conducting workshops. This will not only make the saline lands cultivable but will also make more farmers interested in farming again. As a result, farmers will become financially stable again.
Therefore, the government's groundbreaking initiative will make the uncultivated lands turn into high-yielding, saline and submergence tolerant fallow land.
