To modernise agriculture, a company called Banglamark Limited has set up a farm machinery factory at Elahabad in Chandanaish upazila, Chattogram, where it is producing a range of new machines. Its latest addition is the "BRRI Grain Collector", which collects paddy and wheat from drying yards. The machine was modernised and built with local technology under the overall support and supervision of the Bangladesh Rice Research Institute (BRRI).

BRRI director general Dr. Mohammad Khalequzzaman unveiled the machine on Saturday, 1 February.

"Making farm machinery with local technology will save a great deal of foreign currency," Dr. Khalequzzaman said during the factory visit. Local manufacturing is an important step to make agriculture modern and profitable, and Banglamark's initiative will give farmers quality machines at affordable prices, raising productivity, contributing to economic development and building local technical skills, he said.

Former BRRI director general Dr. Md. Abdul Baki said traditional farming meant hard physical work and low output, while modern farming reduces labour and costs and increases food production; ensuring the use of modern machinery would bring a revolution in food production.

Dr. A. K. M. Saiful Islam, director of the project to strengthen farm machinery research for mechanised rice cultivation, said the team is focusing on cost-effective technologies so marginal farmers benefit, and will give firms like Banglamark full support. Banglamark managing director Md. Rafiqul Islam said the company aims to deliver improved machines to farmers at low cost, adding that modern technology can allow three or four crops a year on the same land.

The factory is making BRRI-model threshers, weeders, winnowers, chopper machines, tractors, combine harvesters, rice transplanters, seeding machines and paddy dryers, among others. Work is also under way on a local version of a combine harvester suited to the haor region. Also present were LSTD project director Dr. Md. Mofazzal Hossain, principal scientific officer Dr. Md. Golam Kibria Bhuiyan and Banglamark deputy managing director Md. Sirajul Islam.

Source: Jagonews24. First published in Bengali on The Agro News.