Aman fields stretch to the horizon, and golden paddy shines in the sun across the fields of Lalmonirhat, the gleam reflected in farmers' faces. Throughout the Bengali month of Agrahayan, the district's five upazilas are in the midst of harvesting, threshing and bringing home the Aman crop.

With disease under control and favourable weather this season, the Aman crop has been a bumper one, bringing smiles to farmers' faces. Paddy is selling at Tk 1,200 to Tk 1,250 a maund in the market, and farmers expect 25 to 30 maunds per bigha this year.

In the fields, farming men and women are busy bringing in the crop, threshing, parboiling and drying the paddy. The mood of the Nabanna (new harvest) festival is in every farm household.

Farmers say production costs have risen with higher prices of fertiliser, pesticide and labour. But with better weather than in other years, pest attacks have been lower, so yields are good this year and prices are good too.

According to the Lalmonirhat agriculture department, favourable weather has produced a bumper Aman crop this season. The department said it hopes the target will be exceeded this year, and also said Aman has been grown on 86,550 hectares in the district, which has exceeded the target. So far 90 percent of the paddy in the district has been harvested.

Akbar Ali of Nij Sheikh Sundar village in Hatibandha upazila said that with no proper roads in the area, they spend extra money every year to transport their Aman paddy.

Mohsin Ali, a farmer in Sadar upazila, said fertiliser and pesticide prices are rising day by day in the market. If prices keep rising like this, their farming will stop, he said, urging the government to lower fertiliser prices.

Hatibandha upazila agriculture officer Mizanur Rahman said that from talking to farmers in the field, he had learnt that favourable weather this year had produced a bumper Aman crop, and farmers would benefit financially from it.

Dr Md Saiful Arifin, deputy director of the Department of Agricultural Extension (DAE) in Lalmonirhat, said the district has had a bumper Aman crop this year, with fewer pest attacks than in other years. Agriculture officers have been helping farmers in every union with modern farming, and farmers are also getting a good price for their paddy, he said.

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