Rain accelerates sowing of jute seeds in N’region

BSS, Rangpur :
The farmers have become busy now in sowing jute seeds after recent rainfall everywhere in the northern region already bringing fifty percent of the targeted land area under its cultivation, officials sources said.
Due to the prolonged drought-like situation that caused lack of soil moisture, sowing of jute seed was hampered almost everywhere in the region and frequent rainfalls in the recent days have eased the situation bringing relief to the farmers.
According to the sources in the Department of Agriculture Extension (DAE), a target of producing over 24.11 lakh bales of jute from over 2.25 lakh hectares of land has been fixed for the current season in the northern Bangladesh.
The farmers have been continuing sowing of jute seed in full swing everywhere and already brought over 1.14 lakh hectares of land, fifty percent of the fixed farming target, till yesterday, the sources added.
Under the programme, farmers will produce 22.37 lakh bales of ‘Tosha’ variety jute fibre from 2.05 lakh hectares of land, 1.44 lakh bales of ‘Deshi’ variety fibre from 16,836 hectares and 30,228 bales of ‘Mechhta’ variety jute from 3,664 hectares in the region this year.
Farmer Echahaq Ali, Aiyub Hossain, Ivy Begum and Sunil Chandra of village Mominpur here said they have already sowed the jute seeds by yesterday after the recent rainfall brought adequate moisture in their fields.
Talking to BSS, Horticulture specialist of the DAE Khondker Md Mesbahul Islam said farmers easily procured quality jute seeds from Bangladesh Agriculture Development Corporation (BADC), other organizations and dealers this time.
But, they had to start sowing of the jute seed little lately for lack of adequate moisture as a result of prolonged drought-like situation and they are expected to complete the sowing process in the coming weeks.
Agriculture scientist with international repute and Associate Director- Agriculture of BRAC International (South Asia & Africa) Dr MA Mazid asked the farmers to complete sowing of jute seeds as early as possible to get better production with quality jute fibre.