RANGPUR, Dec 10, 2024 (BSS) - Braving a drought-like situation during the seedling transplantation stage, farmers have already exceeded the fixed production target of Aman rice as its harvest is nearing completion in Rangpur agriculture region.

Officials of the Department of Agricultural Extension (DAE) said farmers have completed Aman rice harvest in 6,11,826 hectares of land out of a total 6,20,362 hectares of cultivated land area till Monday in the region.

"So far, farmers have produced 19,27,689 tonnes of clean Aman rice exceeding the production target of 19,17,672 tonnes of rice by 10,017 tonnes," Additional Director of DAE for Rangpur region Md Obaidur Rahman Mondal told BSS today.

Earlier, the DAE had fixed a target of producing 19,17,672 tonnes of clean Aman rice (28,76,508 tonnes of paddy) from 6,20,275 hectares of land this season for all five districts of the region.

The enthusiastic farmers, however, finally cultivated the crop in 6,20,362 hectares of land, exceeding the fixed farming target by 0.01 percent in all five districts of the region.

"However, the recent short-term flash floods damaged the Aman rice crop on 617 hectares of land and the remaining Aman rice crop in 6,19,745 hectares of land grew superbly in the region," Rahman said.

To recoup the crop losses, the government implemented agri-rehabilitation programmes assisting the flood-affected farmers to make Aman rice farming programme a success.

With assistance of the DAE and other agriculture related organisations, flood-affected farmers re-transplanted Aman rice seedlings in their crop lands after recession of flood water and got better production.

"We are expecting a super bumper production of Aman rice in the region where farmers have already harvested the crop in 98.72 percent of the cultivated land area. Harvest on the rest of 7,919 hectares of land is likely to be completed soon," Rahman added.
 
The DAE had taken special steps to ensure use of high quality seeds, smooth supply of fertilisers and fuels, prepare model seedbeds, balanced fertilization and adoption of improved technologies to increase Aman rice yield rate this time.
 

As a result, farmers are now getting an average yield rate of 3.15 tonnes of clean Aman rice grains per hectare of land against the targeted 3.09 tonnes of clean rice per hectare in the region.

"In addition, cultivation of high yielding and hybrid varieties of Aman rice in more land resulted in an excellent yield rate higher than the targeted one predicting a super bumper production of Aman rice," Rahman said.

Talking to BSS, farmers Ariful Haque Batul of village Najirdigar, Isahaque Ali and Mominur Rahman of village Kathihara in Rangpur Sadar said they had already harvested their cultivated Aman rice and got excellent production this season.

Similarly, farmers Mofizar Rahman, Solaiman Ali and Matiur Rahman of different villages in Badarganj and Pirganj upazilas said they were happy getting excellent yield rate of their harvested Aman rice crop this time.
 
The farmers also expressed happiness over the present market rate of coarse varieties of Aman paddy between Taka 1,250 and Taka 1,300 per mound.