Farmers of the Barishal division rapidly harvesting paddy in fear of upcoming cyclone Amphan. After visiting different areas of Barishal and Jhalakathi districts it were found that paddy in most of the areas of those districts have been ripen. However some areas of Agoiljhara, Gournadi, and Wajrpur upazilas of Barishal district could not be harvested due to water logging on wet-land (bil) of the region.
Robiul Islam, farmer of Kandokathi village under Jhalakathi Sadar upazila said this year he cultivated 3 acres of land, but till this report harvested only fifty percent due to labour crisis.
Dinobondu Biswas, farmer of Medakul village under Gournadi upazila of Barishal district said due to water logging they could not able to use harvesting machine. Anowar Mia, of Harta village under Satla union of Wazirpur upazila, said they already harvested 60 percent of cultivated paddy and trying to harvest all of ripen paddy within next two days. Muhammad Yamin Chowdhury, said we have to harvest all of ripen paddy within May 19 and if necessary we can take support of students and teachers of the locality.
Toufiqul Alam, deputy director of Barishal regional office of department of agriculture extension (DAE), Barishal said harvesting 80 percent of the cultivated paddy was targeted to avoid probable damage of upcoming cyclone Amphan.
We already started propagation for harvesting the paddy rapidly and are requesting teachers and students of local educational institutions to help the farmers for harvesting paddy, he added.
However in Barishal district some of areas of Gournadi, Agailjhara and Wajirpur were waterlogged so harvesting machine could not be useable there.
So harvesting of paddy in these areas are continuing manually and it will take some time to complete the harvesting paddy. Deputy director of Barishal regional office of DAE, said already harvesting of more than 63 percent out of 1. 25 lakhs hectors of boro paddy cultivated land completed in the division.
Among the harvested boro cultivated land of the division, 55 percent were of Barishal district, 70 percent of Patuakhali, 67 of Pirojpur, 51 of Jhalakathi, 69 of Barguna and 68 of Bhola district. Out of rest amount of cultivated boro-paddy about 25 percent ripen paddy would be harvested within May 19 and only 12 percent would be on field due to not non-maturity.
Divisional DAE official assumed that a major portion of around 50 thousand metric tons of cultivated paddy of rest 12 percent of cultivated land may be damaged in the field if Cyclone Amfan will hit the area within this week. Divisional DAE officials said it is now our challenge to save cultivated beds of 67,313 hectors of Aush saplings and 12.5 thousand hectors of Aush seed beds.
If seed and sapling beds would be damaged by the affect of upcoming cyclone `Amfan’, then it will severely hit our upcoming Aush paddy production, they cautioned.
— Masuk Kamal, Barishal