Climate change pushes boro growers into hardship

Reza Mahmud :
Climate change makes hardship for Boro paddy growers in the upcoming season as they are likely to face under surface water shortage as the rainless monsoon pushed Aman growers to irrigation.
Experts said, less of stipulated price of Aman paddy, increasing cost of irrigation due to fuel oil price hike, increase of seeds, pesticides and day labourer wages have made the farmers anxious about growing Boro paddy in the upcoming season.
They said that when the government asked the farmers to grow more foods, the remaining causes of anxieties of the farmers should have to be eliminated soon.
Farmers and experts said that the growing of Aman paddy is not necessary of irrigation but this year almost total cultivation of the paddy was depended on irrigation which created risks of under surface shortage for the Boro paddy cultivation.
Experts said that it is commonly known that Boro paddy cultivation is depended widely on irrigation from under surface water reserves.
In this view, the concerned authorities had to calculate that how much under surface water they have to use for growing Aman paddy.
When contacted, Dr. Asaduzzaman, Research Director, Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies (BIDS) told The New Nation, “The government had to use river, canal and other surface water sources for irrigations into Aman paddy fields. But we have seen with anxiety that the under surface water had been used widely without any hesitation. It might affect the Boro paddy cultivation severely.”
The experts said also that the government’s stipulated price of the Aman paddy also made the farmers disappointed.
“The government has fixed per kg of Aman paddy Tk 28 which is only one taka more than Tk 27 in the last year,” Dr. Asaduzzaman said.
The farmers and experts said that the government has ignored the farmers’ abnormal extra expenditures of irrigations and other increasing costs.
Meanwhile, the boro paddy cultivation was increased in the last season due to better prices and various types of input support and financial incentives.
As a result, the cultivation of about 78 thousand 560 hectares of land is more than the target this year. As a preliminary, Boro rice has been cultivated in about 120 thousand  
 hectares more land than last year. This information found in the past annual development project (ADP) implementation progress review meeting of the Ministry of Agriculture.
According to the calculations of the Department of Agricultural Extension, the target area for boro cultivation this year was 48 lakh 5 thousand 200 hectares. But due to the good price of paddy, 48 lakh 83 thousand 760 hectares of land has been cultivated.
Compared to 2020-2021 financial year, the total cultivation has increased by about 1 lakh 20 thousand hectares.
Official data of the Department of Agricultural Extension said that there are 44.76 hectares lands eligible for Boro paddy cultivision to grow about 180.14 tonnes of rice annually.
Experts urged the government to meet the needs of the farmers so that they would be eager to cultivate Boro in more lands in this season to cope the needs of growing extra grains.