Boro cultivation suffers from climate change

Reza Mahmud :
Climate change made huge sufferings for the people across Bangladesh especially the Boro paddy growers in this season, sources said.
Farmers from different district said they are gasping for severe shortages of water as the layers of under surface water has gone far deep.
Experts said that climate change caused lack of rain in the country for long which created multiple sufferings for the people as well the farmers across the country.
The shallow and deep tube wells failed to pull water to irrigate Boro paddy fields in different regions of the country including Rajshahi Barind Project areas and the Haour districts of Habigonj, Sunamgonj and Kishorgonj.
Department of Agricultural Extension has targeted to cultivate 50 lakh hectors of land for growing Boro paddy while it fixed the goal of producing two crores and 10 lakh tonnes of Boro rice in this season of 2022-23 fiscal year.
Meanwhile, the main hub of Boro paddy cultivation of Bangladesh is Barind. Barind Multipurpose project areas are suffering most due to lack of surface water and because of going down the layers of the under surface water in the region.
The farmers of nine upazilas of the barind project areas said that they are struggling to maintain irrigation to their boro field due to huge shortage of water.
About 167 out of 2870 deep tube wells become dysfunctional of the project’s nine upazilas, the farmers said.
About two lakh eighty thousand farmers get irrigation facilities from the project exchanging Tk 85 to 180 per hour in different areas.
The Boro growers alleged that the deep tube wells operators failed to provide water as per their serial due to shortage of under surface water.
Besides, they frequently keep deep tube wells stopped due to load shedding of electricity.
As a result, farmers compelled to use alternative pumps which increased their cost of irrigation as far as Tk four to five thousand per bigha boro field, they said.
Similarly, boro farmers from different areas including Khulna and Haour districts also have faced the bitter experience of lacking of necessary irrigation water.
Meanwhile, ordinary people from different district like Sylhet, Faridpur, Magura, Norail and other areas are suffering from acute shortage of drinking water as the layer of under surface water goes very lower stages.
 When contacted, Md. Abdur Rashid, Executive Director and Additional Chief Engineer of Barind Multipurpose Development Authority (BMDA) told The New Nation on Monday, “The under surface water goes very lower stage due to climate change. Lack of rain is behind this crisis.”
He said that the Barind project authority is now providing 12 percent of their total irrigation water using surface water brining from Padma and Mahananda rivers through pipelines.
He said that previously there was zero percent use of surface water in the project.
Contacted, Dr. Asaduzzaman, Research Director of Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies (BIDS) told The New Nation, “It was wrong to use huge surface water for irrigation in IRRI paddy fields earlier.”
He said that the government has to make well plan for using surface water properly in irrigation year long.
When contacted, water resource and climate change specialist Professor Emeritus Dr Ainun Nishat told The New Nation, “It is true that the climate change caused huge suffering for the people especially the farmers.”
He suggested preparing proper plan for water resource management so that the farmers as well the common people get adequate water supply.