Assess extent of crop damage in 10 days

The farmers had transplanted the aman seedlings after the devastating flood in August.

He also asked them to identify the farmers affected by the second spell of natural calamity after the August flooding and who have been provided with free seeds or seedlings and fertilizers.

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"They (second time affected ones) will be entitled to get free farm inputs again for another crop," he told a meeting with officials from different line organisations under his ministry.

State Minister for Agriculture Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir was present at the meeting at the ministry to review the post-flood agriculture rehabilitation programme.

Officials apprised the meeting that the damage due to rainfall would not be much as the late (local) variety of transplanted aman now on the fields have their self-sustaining capacity to keep alive for 7-8 days.

They noted that some pockets in Magura and Faridpur have been affected.

In some areas the farmers apprised the agriculture field officials that the rain had come as a blessing because it helped them irrigate their land.

The minister reminded the officials of resuming implementation of the rehabilitation programme for 12 crops to be cultivated until December. Rehabilitation activities had been stalled for about a week due to the rain.

He thought that nothing could be done for damaged aman in some places because the season was running out.

The meeting also revised up the allocation for rehabilitation programme from Tk 158 crore to Tk 163 crore, as the additional amount would be spent for importing wheat seeds.

Earlier, it was estimated that the stock of Bangladesh Agriculture Development Corporation (BADC) would be enough to supply the required seeds.

The meeting was told that some early-planted Mash Kalai (pulse) and vegetables had been damaged. The government assisted vegetable farming has not yet started.

The government had identified 27 lakh small and marginal farmers to provide them with free seeds or seedlings and fertilizers to recover the crop losses due to devastating flood last month.

Of them, some 4.30 lakh were provided with aman seeds or seedlings and fertilizers.