Instead of depending on only Irri-Boro farming, importance should be given to the promotion of less-irrigation consuming cereal crops in Barind
area to lessen the gradually mounting pressure on underground water, said Dr Akram Hossain Chowdhury, reports BSS.
He opined that large-scale promotion of less-water consuming crops could be the effective means of mitigating water-stress condition in the drought-prone Barind area.
Dr Chowdhury, chairman of Barind Multipurpose Development Authority (BMDA), referred to various research findings and mentioned that there are enormous scopes of increasing the acreage of various low-water consuming crops like wheat, black gram, sesame, mustard, lentil, maize and mugdal in the high Barind tract.
He was addressing a field-day meeting titled “Projection of Water-saving Technologies in Farmers level Crop Production in Barind area” held at Kodom Shohar area under Godagari Upazila of the district yesterday as chief guest.
Irrigation and Water Management Division (IWMD) of Bangladesh Agriculture Research Institute (BARI) organized the programme in association with SDC-DASCOH.
With Dr Abdur Razzaque Akanda, Chief Scientific Officer of IWMD, in the chair, Deputy Director of Department of Agriculture Extension Joynal Abedeen, District Training Officer Shamsul Alam, Principal Scientific Officer of Fruit Research Station Dr Alim Uddin, Senior Scientific Officer of OFRD-BARI Dr Shakhawat Hossain and Research Fellow of Integrated Water Resource Management Razzaqul Islam also spoke.
Dr Razzaque Akanda told the meeting that wheat could be cultivated on seven to eight bighas of land with same amount of irrigation-water needed to irrigate one bigha of Boro rice through soil moisture utilisation and the best uses of the modern technologies.Dr Akram Chowdhuy said the present government is committed to integrated water resources management in the vast Barind tract. All the authorities concerned and farmers should come forward and work together to this end. Farmers in the hard Barind area need time-fitting training and motivation on how to cultivate more less-irrigated crops to lessen the existing pressure on groundwater.