Days of continuous rain in Habiganj have caused heavy damage to the boro crop. Large parts of several haors in Nabiganj, Baniachong, Ajmiriganj and Lakhai upazilas have been submerged, and sharecroppers and indebted farmers are in despair, fearing that ripe and half-ripe paddy will rot.

The agriculture department's preliminary estimate is that about 300 hectares have been submerged, but local sources and affected farmers say the damage has passed 10,000 bighas, or about 1,350 hectares.

On the ground, paddy on several thousand bighas is under water in Baniachong upazila, including the Ugli, Batasher and Bali haors and the Sujatpur, Ikram and Shatamukha areas. Water has kept flowing into the haors over the Ratna river embankment for a week, so new areas are flooded every day, and thousands of farmers fear the crop will rot.

Affected farmers said that with the fields going under just as the ears were emerging, there was no longer any chance of bringing the crop home, and they faced heavy losses.

According to the agriculture department, 281 hectares of crops had been fully submerged by the rain up to 6 April: 218 hectares in Baniachong, the most, 18 in Ajmiriganj, 20 in Nabiganj and 25 in Lakhai. New areas are being flooded daily, and the extent of crops submerged by the overnight rain on 6 April has not yet been assessed.

Mahbubur Rahman, a farmer from Sujatpur village in Baniachong, said a few days of rain had flooded wide stretches of haor land just as the paddy was ripening. "The paddy may rot under water. If we can't harvest this time, it will be hard for farmers even to feed themselves," he said.

Ahlad Mia, a farmer from Ikramu village in the same area, said: "I borrowed and struggled to sharecrop 8 bighas. It cost Tk 3,500 a bigha. The crop was good, but the rain has finished it all. Now I am at a loss whether to repay the loan or put food in my family's mouths."

Sadikur Rahman, chairman of Sujatpur union parishad, said water coming over the Ratna river embankment as well as rain had made the situation worse. For a week water had been entering the Ugli, Batasher and Bali haors over the embankment, and new paddy was going under every day. Already about 7,000 bighas of farmers' green paddy had been submerged, he said.

Sayedur Rahman, executive engineer of the Water Development Board, said a plan had been made to re-excavate the haors' link canals under a JICA project, and they were trying to include one or two more haors in it. Once the link canals are dug, water will not stand in the haors, he said.

Md Aktaruzzaman, deputy director of the district Department of Agricultural Extension (DAE), said the water standing in the haor was rainwater, not river water. The river is higher than the water in the haor, he said, so if the embankment were cut to drain the haor, river water would flow in instead. There is no prospect of the haor water falling soon.

He said the exact extent of the damage could not yet be determined, since losses cannot be counted until a certain period has passed, but the department was monitoring the haors regularly.

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