Bitter cold and dense fog are ruining boro rice seedbeds in Mirsarai, Chattogram. With fog falling like rain for the past few days, farmers fear losses and boro cultivation could be disrupted. Growers are already losing money as their seedbeds are spoiled.

Seedbeds were prepared for the current boro season in No 1 Karerhat, No 2 Hinguli, No 3 Zorarganj, No 8 Durgapur, No 12 Khoiyachhara, No 15 Wahedpur and No 16 Saherkhali unions of the upazila. But most of them have been ruined by the fog and the intensity of the cold.

According to the upazila agriculture office, seedbeds have been prepared on 140 hectares this year, 15 hectares more than last year.

A visit to various unions found boro seedbeds damaged by cold and fog. Once-green seedbeds are now pale and reddish or rotting, leaving growers at a loss. In some places rice seed is rotting before it even sprouts.

Farmers said spraying various fungicides was not saving the seedbeds, nor was draining off the fog water every day.

Boro farmer Mohammad Yusuf of Durgapur union said most of their seedbeds had been ruined by excessive fog and cold, and there was no time left to prepare new seedbeds and plant again.

Abdul Hannan, a farmer from Moddhyam Wahedpur village in Wahedpur union, said: "This year there is more fog than in several years, and the cold is much more intense. I prepared a boro seedbed on 6 decimals of land. Most of it has been ruined. I don't know what to do now."

Mirsarai upazila agriculture officer Pratap Chandra Roy said that if boro seedbeds are hit by cold and fog, they should be irrigated and kept soaked all day, and the water released in the evening. That way the seedbeds will not be damaged.

He added that the situation would return to normal once the fog eases, and that farmers had been advised to make seedbeds on dry ground.

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