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Farmers are expanding cultivation of hybrid rice to reap benefits of higher yield than inbred varieties and profit from sale of the staple food.
And overall cultivation of hybrid rice during the Boro season hit at 12.11 lakh hectares of land in the fiscal year 2020-21, the highest on record.
Farmers grew the hybrid varieties, which provide at least 20 per cent higher yields than local and high yielding varieties of rice, on 9.04 lakh hectares the previous fiscal year, showing that they increased hybrid area by 34 per cent, according to the Department of Agricultural Extension (DAE) data.
Banking on the success, the DAE targets to bring 12.36 lakh hectares under hybrid rice cultivation during the current Boro season, the largest grain crop season in terms of production.
“We expect the target of hybrid rice cultivation will be achieved as farmers have grown the required amount of seedlings for this,” said Habibur Rahaman Chowdhury, additional director for extension and coordination at the DAE.
He shared the update after presenting a paper at a meeting on increasing cultivation of inbred and hybrid varieties of rice at the agriculture ministry yesterday. Agriculture Minister Muhammad Abdur Razzaque was present.
Chowhury in the paper showed that farmers planted hybrid rice on only 6.60 lakh hectares of land out of 45.17 lakh hectares during the Boro season in the fiscal year 2016-17.
Cultivation increased eventually encouraged by steady increase in prices of their grains and marketing campaigns by seed companies.
Chwodhury said a government incentive in the form of distribution of a certain amount of hybrid seeds for free to farmers and move to buy all sorts of rice irrespective of quality and size of grain encouraged producers to add more land for hybrid cultivation.
As a result, millers are also buying coarse paddy, he said.
FH Ansarey, president of the agribusiness division of ACI, said yield of hybrid paddy was at least 20 per cent higher than that from inbred ones.
In addition, high prices of paddy have made cultivation of hybrid rice profitable to growers, he said.
The official of the leading hybrid seed selling company said seed companies sold 12,000 tonnes of hybrid rice seeds this Boro cultivation season.
Until now the government approved more than 200 varieties of imported and locally developed hybrid rice seeds. However, nearly two dozen seeds gained popularity among farmers, said insiders.
At yesterday’s event at the agriculture ministry, Bangladesh Seed Association urged for easing the process of registration of new varieties of hybrid seeds. It also demanded for evaluating the performance of new seed varieties for season-wise cultivation.
(TDS)
