Rain takes toll on aman in Nilphamari
The damage may keep the production far below the targets in the district, officials apprehend.
The rain also damaged early winter vegetables, causing heavy losses to farmers.
Aman was cultivated on 1,16,860 hectares of land including 20,791 hectares in low-lying areas in Nilphamari district this year with a production target of 3.5 lakh tonnes.
District agriculture officials said the production may fall 24,045 tonnes short of the target as crops on 8,015 hectares were completely damaged by the rain. But unofficial sources put the shortfall at about 60,000 tonnes.
Officials however claimed that the rain will not affect the target as fresh lands were brought under its cultivation this year.
This correspondent while visiting Ramnagar and Charaikhola villages in Sadar upazila; and Putimari and Magura in Kishoreganj upazila on Wednesday saw farmers cutting paddy plants in damaged fields to use those as fodder.
The rain has also damaged early variety of potato seeds sown recently. Early variety potato is grown on around 15,500 hectares in the district. Now it will take another 20-25 more days to prepare the lands to sow potato seeds again.
Ginger, a cash crop for farmers in the district, has also been damaged by the downpour.
Though its harvest is about three months away, farmers are collecting tender ginger from fields and selling those at cheaper rates. Nilphamari is known for ginger cultivation.
Early variety winter vegetables like tomato, bringle, cabbage, colocassia have also been damaged totally, officials of the Department of Agriculture Extension (DAE) said. The fields would take 20-25 days to be ready for vegetable cultivation again. DAE had fixed a target to bring 5,000 hectors under vegetable cultivation in the district.
DAE's Plant Protection Specialist Sheikh Ahmed Reza said a post flood rehabilitation programme will be started soon.
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