The sudden floods have raised fears of a serious food crisis in the country. Teachers and students of Sher-e-Bangla Agricultural University (SAU) have stepped forward to help with post-flood farm rehabilitation and to tackle the food crisis. They have taken an initiative to give affected farmers vegetable seed and rice seedlings free of charge. The Bangladesh Rice Research Institute (BRRI) and the Bangladesh Agricultural Development Corporation (BADC) are helping by supplying seed.

From early Tuesday morning, university students began preparing seedbeds on SAU's research field to raise rice seedlings, and they sowed the seed on Wednesday. The university's Anti-Oppression Teachers' Forum is guiding the work.

Seedlings of several Aman rice varieties, such as BRRI dhan75, BRRI dhan23 and BINA dhan17, will be raised in the seedbeds. Seed and seedlings of various varieties of tomato, bottle gourd, bean and yardlong bean, along with other winter vegetables, will also be distributed. The teachers and students involved have decided to raise the seedbeds for these crops on the old trade fair ground.

Professor Dr Jamilur Rahman of SAU's Department of Genetics and Plant Breeding said: "To help tackle the food crisis and give farmers rice seedlings free of charge, we contacted BADC and collected seed for about one and a half acres. Alongside this, seed and seedlings of bottle gourd, bean, brinjal, papaya, yardlong bean and tomato will be given to farmers. Once these seedlings are ready, seed of the university-developed 'SAU Canola-1', white maize and quinoa will be produced and given to farmers."

Professor Ruhul Amin of the Department of Agronomy said the students' noble initiative was an important step in tackling the food crisis and that teachers would give full support to carry it out. "When the students came to consult us about planting rice in flood-hit areas, we contacted BRRI and BADC for rice seed and received about 300 kg of rice seed from BADC. Sowing the seed on about four bigha of land is under way. We are staying in touch with BADC to get more rice seed."

Md Tauhid Ahmed Ashik, a coordinator at Sher-e-Bangla Agricultural University, said: "After consulting our teachers, we took the initiative to prepare seedbeds to help flood victims. The seedbed work is already finished. Tomorrow morning we will sow the rice seed, and the seedlings will later be distributed among the flood victims."

On vegetable seedlings, he said: "Not many seedlings can be raised in this small space on our campus, so we have taken the initiative to raise vegetable seedlings on the trade fair ground. A final decision will be taken after talking to the teachers."

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