The Department of Agriculture Extension (DAE) has fixed a target of producing over o.49 million tonnes of wheat from Rangpur division during this Rabi season.
The DAE officials said the farmers are now more inspired to cultivate wheat on more land area in two agriculture regions under all eight districts of Rangpur division after getting repeated bumper production with lucrative price in recent years.
The fixed target includes production of 88,731 tonnes of wheat from 26,487 hectares of land in five districts under Rangpur agriculture region and over 3.98-lakh tonnes of wheat from over 1.18-lakh hectares of land in three districts under Dinajpur agriculture region.
Horticulture Specialist of DAE Khondker Md. Mesbahul Islam said the farmers have already sowed wheat seed on 42,000 hectares of land as the process is getting momentum with progress in harvesting Aman rice, said on Tuesday.
The DAE, Bangladesh Agriculture Development Corporation (BADC), Bangladesh Agriculture Research Institute (BARI) and other agriculture-related organisations and institutions have taken steps to make wheat farming programme a success.
"The government has ensured quality wheat seed, latest technologies, fertilisers and other inputs for the farmers to promote cultivation of the profitable wheat crop that has huge demand in local markets," Mesbahul added.
Dinajpur Hub Coordinator of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center Anarul Haque said the farmers are cultivating less irrigation water consuming wheat on more land using latest technologies to save ground water, earn more profits and ensure food security,says a BSS report.
"Wheat farming has already become popular as the farmers got its repeated bumper production at the lowest farming costs along with lucrative price everywhere in the division in recent times," Haque added.
Deputy Director of DAE at its regional office here Md Moniruzzaman said farmers are cultivating high yielding BARI Gom26, 'Pradip', 'Bijoy', 'Protiva', 'Sotabdi', 'Sourav', 'Gaurab' and 'Swarna' wheat varieties after getting excellent output in recent years.
Rangpur Regional Additional Director of DAE Md Shah Alam said yield rate of wheat is increasing every year as farmers are cultivating high yielding-, disease resistant- and stress tolerant- varieties of wheat adopting the conservation agriculture technologies.