Govt mulling introducing 4 Indian rice varieties

The agriculture ministry's seed wing is thinking over formally introducing four Indian rice varieties, as the neighbouring country has done recently and as some popular varieties are being collected by Bangladeshi farmers through border trade.

Informing this at a discussion in the capital's Brac Centre Inn as the chief guest, the wing's director general, Anwar Faruque, advocated for importing hybrid seeds in cases where producing those at home was not profitable, citing that it was the time of globalisation.

"Just five years ago, all the vegetable seeds of hybrid varieties were imported...But today around 97 percent of hybrid vegetable seeds are home grown. Even Bangladesh has been exporting seeds of hybrid vegetable varieties," he said.

The discussion, "Promoting climate adaptive technology through advocacy and communication", was organised by Brac's "Advocacy for Social Change" programme and Brac University's "Center for Climate Change and Environment Research".

Shykh Seraj, director and head of news, Channel i, said new varieties innovated focusing on climate change were not meeting ground realities and reaching farmers on time.

He cited the example of a rice variety tolerant to 8 ppt (parts per thousand) of salinity which was innovated at a time when salinity in coastal areas had reached 10 ppt and higher.

The non-government sector must work with the government to take new technologies to the field level and the latter must ensure just prices for farmers, he added. 

He said the government hardly took up any policy working against the businesses of pesticides and chemical fertilisers and that successive governments never thought about occupational health hazards faced by farmers.

Presenting the keynote speech, Prof Ainun Nishat explained the problems farmers were facing due to changes in the traditional crop calendar, stating that spring, autumn and late autumn were not that much noticeable now. For the drop in prices, rice farmers of northern Bangladesh were switching to mango or litchi cultivation, he said. 

Prof Abdul Badyes, director Brac research and evaluation division, presented his observations while Asif Saleh, senior director, strategy and communication and empowerment, Brac, chaired the session.