Haor farmers start harvesting paddy amid crop sterility

Farmers have started harvesting their boro paddy across the country mostly in the haor belt amid crop sterility due to the recent heatwave.

Boro paddy has been harvested on one per cent of 4.5 lakh hectares cropland in the haor belt as of Sunday, said Monirul Islam, Department of Agricultural Extension’s (DAE) field service wing director.

Kishoreganj, Netrokona, Brahmanbara, Sunamganj, Sylhet, Moulvibazar and Habiganj are the mentionable districts in the belt.

The farmers will massively start the harvesting after April 14, the first day of Bangla month Baishakh and then within a week about 30 to 40 per cent of paddy will be harvested, he added.

“We expect that over 40 per cent of boro in haor will be harvested with boro seedlings by April 20,’ he told the Business Insider Bangladesh.

Monirul said that the growers were using combined harvesters, a high technology machine, for fast harvesting so that they can avoid any probable flood or natural calamities.

He, however, said that there was some sterility problem in the haor because of the high temperature and heatwave this year.

Farmers in these districts grew early varieties of boro rice including BR 28 and BR 29 to get these harvested early because haor belt has been naturally vulnerable to flash floods, caused by the water from upstream India.

Meanwhile, the DAE has primarily estimated that the heat shock appeared recently hit on the standing boro croplands and caused a financial loss of TK 8.7crore.

Over 52,000 hectares of the boro croplands were affected in 16 districts that incurred the production loss of over 24,000 metric tons of rice, said the DAE primary estimation.

Monirul Islam said that they were still working on the issue to finalize the assessment on the damage.

Boro is the largest cereal crop in Bangladesh in production volume as the crop grows in 48 lakh hectares across the country and produces about 200 lakh tonnes of rice annually.