CropsGrowing, cold storage and transport cost Tk 23-24 a kilo, but potatoes fetch Tk 14-15; with cold stores to be emptied by 10 November, farmers and traders face mounting losses.
With no rain for several days in Hili, Dinajpur, farmers are irrigating transplanted Aman paddy with shallow pumps, and the fuel price rise has added two to three thousand taka a bigha to their costs.
CropsWith the monsoon set to end about 12% below the long-period average and 42% of districts short of rain, experts expect lower yields of tur, soybean, maize and paddy even though sowing is only slightly down.
CropsResearchers from Sultan Qaboos University, the James Hutton Institute and others refined a method to measure DNA-bound phosphorus in soil, a window on the biologically active part of the phosphorus cycle.
With fuel prices up, demand for ploughing and levelling fields with horses instead of tractors and power tillers is rising in villages of Talam union, Tarash, Sirajganj, and some farmers have made it their trade.
CropsOn the Padma chars of Harirampur, Manikganj, women decide what is sown where and which seed is kept, yet their names are missing from land deeds, farmer lists and the new farmer card applications.
The Krishak O Khetmojur Sangram Parishad rallied at the National Press Club demanding a stop to solar plants on cropland, enough fertiliser at the government price and rationing, and announced district protests on 5 October.
CropsICAR-IIMR's regional pearl millet station at Gudamalani, Balotra, opened a new administrative and laboratory building and a technology park, part of Rs 1,716 lakh of investment to strengthen research and farmer training.
Darul Islam, a farmer in Fulbaria, Mymensingh, builds rat traps from bamboo, jute rope and discarded bicycle or rickshaw tubes; after catching about 300 rats on his 10 kathas in the Aus season, he sells them at Tk 100 each and neighbours are using them in Aman fields.
AgrotechAI now runs through almost every step from seedbed to drying; one drone operator has flown 4,042 missions over 1,600 hectares, and a modern drying centre handles 600 tonnes of rice a day.
In Fulbari, Dinajpur, early Aman yields 18-22 maunds a bigha, but at Tk 750-900 a maund farmers are not recovering their costs; paddy has fallen Tk 200-300 a maund in ten days.
With diesel up Tk 20 to Tk 135 a litre, Naogaon farmers reckon irrigation, tillage, threshing and transport will cost Tk 1,500-2,500 more a bigha, and fear losses in the coming Boro season.
A tenant farmer in Ruhia, Thakurgaon, says his seven bighas of rice began rotting and turning red the day after he sprayed several pesticides a local dealer supplied.
