Over 1.74 m hectares come under mechanical farming
Staff Reporter :
The process of agricultural mechanisation is progressing rapidly in the country after overcoming many hurdles.
As a result, in the two main Boro and Aman seasons, an average of 17 per cent of rice land has been harvested through automatic machines like combine harvesters.
Concerned officials said only 4.0 per cent of the land was covered by mechanical harvesting in the fiscal year 2019-20, but it has increased to 17 per cent in 2022-23 thanks to the integrated farm mechanisation project activities of the government.
And in this mechanical flight, laborious manual labour reduction, time saving and crop losses in the post-harvest phase have been reduced and the farmers of Boro and Aman have saved about Tk 27.14 billion, they said.
Farmer Tofail Ahmed of Fanerbak village of Jamalaganj upazila of Sunamganj district said that the government has provided several combine harvesters in the area with 70 per cent subsidy and farmers have benefited a lot by using the machines.
“Now I can cut and thresh paddy for Tk 1500 per bigha land and bring it home. Earlier it used to cost Tk 4 to 5 thousand per bigha to harvest paddy with laborers. Again, another Tk 500 to 1000 was spent on threshing. Now everything is done at the cost of Tk 1500. Moreover, paddy can be cut with this machine even in rain,” he added.
Jamalganj Agricultural Extension Department Officer M Ala Uddin said that paddy was cultivated on 24.470 thousand hectares in this upazila in the last Boro season. In which 14.682 thousand hectares of land have been harvested by farmers using combine harvester machines, which is 60 per cent of the plantation.
Integrated Farm Mechanisation Project Director Tariq Mahmudul Islam said that, around 4 per cent of rice was harvested with combine harvesters across the country in the fiscal year 2019-2020.
It stands at 17 per cent (11.22 per cent in the Aman season and 22.17 per cent in the Boro season) in the outgoing fiscal year.
When asked about the amount of land, he said that the amount of land harvested in Amon and Boro seasons by combine harvesters is over 1.74 million hectares.
“During the Aman season, 5.733 thousand hectares of land were cultivated across the country.
In this, 6.42 lakh hectares of paddy has been harvested with combine harvesters, which is 11.22 per cent of the total arable lands. Prevention of wastage of crops during Aman and Boro seasons is over 4.13 lakh tonnes worth Tk 10.14 billion,” he added.
The savings like lower rate of fare, time savings in paddy harvesting during Aman and Boro seasons by combine harvesters is about Tk 17 billion and the total saving amount is Tk 27.14 billion.
He said the project has provided 30,991 unit of machine of 12 categories so far of which combine harvester is 8300.
Farm economist Prof Saidur Rahman, said to ensure food security amid the global economic recession and internal labor crisis in Bangladesh, modernization and mechanization of agriculture is a must-to-do task.
The government’s initiative to introduce modern paddy harvesters during the Boro season is a commendable solution to address the severe labour shortage.
However, to maximise the benefits, it is crucial to conduct workshops and provide training for farmers and machine operators on the proper use and maintenance of these machines.
