After harvesting mustard and potatoes, farmers in Dinajpur are rushing to plant Irri-Boro rice seedlings in the final stretch of the season. Farmers and the agriculture department expect a bumper crop if the weather stays favourable. But problems with fertiliser, electricity and the ownership of deep tubewells are causing farmers hardship.

The district has set a target of 1,76,300 hectares for Irri-Boro this year: 1,17,300 hectares of high-yielding varieties and 59,000 hectares of hybrids. If the target is met, rice production will be about 7,75,000 tonnes.

According to the Dinajpur agriculture department, the targets across the 13 upazilas are: Sadar 57,788 hectares, Birganj 14,955, Kaharole 5,758, Khansama 4,565, Chirirbandar 18,704, Bochaganj 9,255, Biral 13,364, Parbatipur 24,350, Phulbari 14,585, Nawabganj 1,880, Birampur 1,640, Hakimpur 7,500 and Ghoraghat 9,935 hectares. In 103 unions, a total of 304 dealers will sell fertiliser, including 172 sub-dealers of the Bangladesh Agricultural Development Corporation (BADC) and 133 BCIC dealers.

Farmers are facing fertiliser problems in various places and are not getting as much as they need. At 8pm on 24 February, 83 sacks of chemical fertiliser on seven vans were seized at Amtali Bazar in Chirirbandar upazila while being moved from one upazila to another against the rules, even though farmers in Chirirbandar are not getting fertiliser.

Earlier, on the morning of 22 February, several hundred farmers who could not get fertiliser surrounded a fertiliser dealer's office at Kamalpur Bazar in Kamalpur union of Sadar upazila. Farmers said enough fertiliser was not available: when they needed 10 sacks they got one or two. They said dealers were craftily creating an artificial shortage and selling fertiliser on the open market, forcing farmers to buy it at higher prices.

Load-shedding has also increased, making irrigation a struggle; farmers have to stay up night after night to get water. On 26 February, six deep tubewells (irrigation pumps) of the Barind Multipurpose Development project in Phulbari stopped because of an ownership dispute. With boro fields cracking for lack of irrigation, those affected formed a human chain demanding water.

Md Anichhuzzaman, additional deputy director (crops) of the DAE in the district, said the agriculture department has launched a range of activities to make Irri-Boro production a success in the 103 unions of the district's 13 upazilas. Planting began at the start of February. The agriculture department said that with favourable weather producing good seedbeds, the target could be exceeded.

He said: "The problems that arose have been solved. BRRI dhan90 is being grown widely in the district this year. Because farmers got good prices for fine BRRI dhan34 in the Aman season, they are planting fine BRRI dhan90 seedlings widely."

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