62 percent of boro paddy harvested in haor districts

Farmers have harvested over 62 per cent of boro paddy in the country's haor belt amid severe shortage of seasonal agricultural labourers, according to the Department of Agricultural Extension (DAE).

DAE officials said 14 per cent of the remaining paddy have ripened, while the 24 per cent of the paddy have not yet ripened.
The DAE estimate shows that boro paddy has been cultivated at 4,45,399 hectres of land at haor belt districts--Kishoreganj, Netrokona, Sunamganj, Moulvibazar, Habiganj, Sylhet and Brahmanbaria--this year.

"Boro paddy of 2.74 lakh hectres of land or 62 per cent of the land have already been harvested (by April 27. The boro paddy of 65 per cent of land in Sylhet, 72 per cent of land in Moulvibazar, 55 per cent of land in Habiganj, 65 per cent of land in Sunamganj, 74 per cent of land of Netrokona, 70 per cent of land in Brahmanbaria and 47 per cent of land in Kishoreganj have been harvested by Tuesday," said a DAE official.

"This week would be more crucial for the farmers to harvest the matured paddy as they were in fear of possible flashfloods in the haor belt likely to cause damage to the crop," the DAE official said.

Heavy rains likely to occur in the upstream India this week which could cause the flashfloods in haor belt of Bangladesh, he said.

DAE experts suggested extending government's support to farmers to harvest boro with modern equipment in shortest possible time.

As farmers continued harvest in full swing, the DAE officials hoped that the country this year could see bumper production of boro, the largest cereal crop in term of output volume.

Farmers cultivated early boro rice especially BR-28, BR-29 and other hybrid varieties in 4.5 lakh hectares of haor areas in Sylhet, Sunamganj, Moulvibazar, Netrakona, Habiganj, Kishoreganj and Brahmanbaria.

Sunamganj DAE deputy director Safar Uddin said, "Per hectare yield of boro husked rice is estimated at 3.9 tonnes."

Netrakona DAE deputy director Habibur Rahman said, "We estimated that 12,000 farm labourers and 63 combined harvesters were engaged in harvesting boro rice in haor belt," he said.

According to the DAE field service wing, about 25 per cent of boro rice has been harvested nationally and the crop harvest was expected to be completed by next month.

The government has set target to produce over 2 crore tones of boro rice from 48 lakh hectares land across the country, the DAE officials said.