The country’s agricultural sector has witnessed a glorious revolution as it marked an unprecedented increase in productions this year even amid the Covid-19 pandemic and long-lasting flood.
Apart from the other crops like paddy and jute, country’s farmers also are expecting a bumper production of vegetables this year.
The recent flood continued depositing nutrient-rich fine-grained sediments to lands making them more fertile.
As a result, there will be no more unused agricultural lands in the country. All the lands will be used for agricultural production.
Agricultural Minister Dr. MdAbdurRazzaq on Thursday expressed his hope as saying that there will be no food crisis in the country due to corona impact.
“It is difficult to say about what would be the long-term impact on the food and nutrition security due to the Covid-19 pandemic situation, but hopefully there will be no food crisis in the country”, said the Agricultural Minister while speaking at the 35th Asia-Pacific Regional Conference of the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO).
The minister said the Bangladesh government has taken timely initiatives to tackle COVID-19. The government is providing various incentives to the farmers to continue food production. As a result, the trend of food production is maintained even in COVID-19 situation.
According to the Agricultural Ministry and the Department of Agricultural Extension, the agricultural sector is moving forward at a great pace. Huge work is going on in the farm fields all over the country now.
The floods and rains could not cause much damage to the agriculture this year. Rather, all the dirt has been washed away by the flood water while silt has been deposited on the soil. The flood has increased fertility.
They said now a festival for cultivating various crops including winter vegetables is going on in the rural areas. People who lost their jobs abroad are now engaged in the agriculture. Many people from different cities have returned to theirrespective villages and engaged them in the cultivation of fruits and crops.
Md. Abdul Mueed, Director General of the Department of Agricultural Extension, said that climate change is not an old thing for the farmers of Bangladesh. Natural disasters, including floods, storms, tidal surges, cyclones, torrential rains, droughts, low pressure, and foggy rains, have a tendency to turn around at any moment. The farmers have been doing this for a long time. Now they have become more conscious.
The DG said, Aman paddy has been planted on 58, 95, 000 hectares of land and 1.55 crore metric tons of rice is expected to be produced.
He said Aman paddy is being planted on more land than the target. Besides, the target for winter vegetable production is 5 lakh hectares of land. Farmers will get benefits in the coming Rabi season for the floods and rainfall.
Keeping the post COVID-19 pandemic situation in mind, the government has taken multiple-track initiatives to develop the agriculture sector so that no scarcity of food is created in future in Bangladesh.
As part of the initiatives, the government has decided to bring all the uncultivated land under cultivation. Besides, initiatives have been taken so that crops could be cultivated for four times on the same tract of land.
Moreover, cultivation of fruits, vegetables and oil-type crops, farming of cattle has also been planned in the initiatives. Modern and developed methods and technologies are being applied for these purposes.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina earlier has ordered the ministers of Agriculture, Land, Food, Livestock, Fisheries and other ministries for taking proper measures. She said not even a single inch of land would be kept uncultivated. She has put emphasis on the cultivation of fruits and vegetables apart from normal crops.
The ministry and directorate have also decided to provide all kinds of supports to the farmers. With the supports, a total of 10,85,15,000 decimal of uncultivated land would be added to the 85.77 hectares of cultivated land.
Besides, farmers would also be awarded and rewarded considering their performances in the cultivation and production capacity.
Earlier, the government have taken initiatives to provide various agro machineries, materials and machineries to the farmers at 50 percent of the cost.
As per the initiatives, the government is going to provide various agro machineries and materials to the farmers of the county. For the welfare of the farmers across the country, the government is taking a Tk 3,000 crore project soon.
These agro machineries, materials and equipment would help farmers to make their tasks easier and minimize their cost of production and time.
Under the project, tractors, power tillers, threshers, rippers and combined harvestersare amongthe materials and machineries, which would be provided to the farmers across the country. The project would be implemented in 61 districts keeping three hilly districts out of it, said officials concerned.
They said, under the project, farmers in the haor and saline water prone areas would be compensated up to 70 percent of the costs of these machineries and materials while the farmers of other areas would be compensated up to 50 percent of the costs. Machineries and materials would be provided as per the choices of the farmers, according to their needs and wills.
Department of Agricultural Extension sources said a combined harvester worth Tk 28 lakh would be provided to a farmer at Tk 14 lakh as the government would compensate 50 percent of the cost. A total of 50,000 Combined Harvesters would be provided to 50,000 farmers and the names of the farmers would be selected by the local agricultural offices.
A combined harvester is capable to harvest, thresh, clean and pack huge quantity of paddies or rice within a short period of time.
Besides, the government would provide 15 maze sheers to farmers for corn threshing purposes. The farmers would also be provided with paddy transplanters and potato collector machines.