Farmers to get over Tk 57cr incentives for boosting Aus

The farmers of the country will get incentives of Taka 57.25 crore for increasing area and production of Aus paddy as the traditional rice variety now occupies about 8.97 percent of total cropped area and production is over 3 million tonnes.

Under the incentive, almost 10 lakh small and marginal farmers will get free seed and fertilizer to cultivate the rice variety, said an official release here today.

As country's 6.88 percent of total rice output comes from Aus cultivation -where modern varieties cover only 5.91percent and local varieties about 0.98percent. Considering the situation, each farmers will get 5 kgs of seed,

10 kgs of di-ammonium phosphate(DAP) and Muriate of Potash (MoP) fertilizer for cultivating one bigha of land under the incentive aiming to raise the output of high yielding variety (HYV) of the rice.

The incentives are being provided from the regular budget of the agriculture ministry and the rehabilitation assistance programme run by it. The distribution of the incentives will begin soon at the field level, the release added.

Aus paddy is generally planted in March-. April and harvested in June-July and practically harmonized with the climatic season hot summer (March-May).