Sunamganj district covers 3,747.18 square kilometres and has 137 haors in all. This season Aman paddy has been grown in around 60 of them, large and small. Three rounds of flooding this year caused heavy damage to the Aus crop, leaving haor farmers disheartened, but an uninterrupted Aman season and a good yield have now brought smiles back to their faces.
Smallholder Abu Saiham spent about Tk 3 lakh growing Aman on 50 kear of land and harvested about 800 maunds of paddy. Keeping back enough for his family's year, he has sold paddy worth about Tk 8 lakh straight from the field. "The yield in the haor area is much better this year than in other years," he told Jagonews. "I am already selling paddy at Tk 1,100 to Tk 1,300 a maund."
Two lakh farmers busy with the harvest
Abu Saiham is not alone: around 2 lakh farmers in Sunamganj are busy bringing in the Aman crop. Some are cutting paddy with harvester machines, some are storing it in granaries, and others are drying and bagging it in the field and selling it at Tk 1,100 to Tk 1,300 a maund.
Farmers in the district grew 25 varieties of paddy this year, the most common being BINA dhan17, BRRI dhan49, BRRI dhan90, BRRI dhan95, BR22 and BRRI dhan87. They were grown in Sunamganj Sadar, Bishwambharpur, Dowarabazar, Chhatak, Shantiganj, Jamalganj and Dharmapasha upazilas, yielding 14 to 18 maunds a bigha, or 4.5 tonnes a hectare.
Haor farmers Sufian, Badsha and Ekhlasur Rahman told Jagonews: "We are very happy that the Aman yield is better than last year. With it we will also be able to recover from the flood losses."
According to the Department of Agricultural Extension (DAE), the Aman target for Sunamganj this season was 83,380 hectares, and about 83,495 hectares were actually planted. This is expected to produce 3.21 lakh tonnes of paddy, with a market value of more than Tk 1,000 crore.
Bimal Chandra Som, deputy director of the district DAE, told Jagonews: "With good weather, farmers are safely cutting, threshing, winnowing and drying their paddy and storing it. Some 65 per cent of the paddy has already been harvested."
Source: Jagonews24. First published in Bengali on The Agro News.
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