13.42 lakh tonnes of boro from 3.6 lakh hectares of lands are expected in Barisal Agriculture Region (BAR), sources close to Directorate of Agriculture Extension (DAE) said. For this, an extensive programme has been taken up for cultivation of Boro paddy in all the 11 districts of Barisal agricultural region in the current season. But the Boro farmers of the region are apprehending losses in the event of prices of saplings, fertilisers, pesticides and irrigation remaining uncontrolled, and they think that the price of rice would decline after this Boro harvesting.

The Agriculture Extension Department (AED) of Barisal region is expecting achievement of production target of 13.42 lakhs tonnes of Boro rice by cultivating 3.59 hectares of lands in 11 districts under Barisal agricultural region in the current season.This year the Boro production target in Barisal AED region is about 30 thousand hectares more than last year's, said AED officials in the division "Farmers in the region have already started plantation without any trouble," Sudhir Ranjan, deputy director of Barisal AED, said.

He said that farmers had already completed cultivation on 2.62 lakhs hectares land, sixty percent of the targeted cultivation.Prices of fertilizers are also now within the capacity of the farmers, he added. Of the total 3,59,738 hectares, hybrid Boro will be cultivated on 61,600 hectares, high yielding varieties on 2,74,640 hectares and local varieties on 23,498 hectares.

The 11 districts under Barisal AED are Barisal, Jhalakati, Pirojpur, Patuakhali, Barguna and Bhola of Barisal division Faridpur, Gopalganj, Shariatpur, Rajbari and Madaripur of Dhaka division. In last season, two types of bacteria Bacterial Leaf Streak and Bacterial Leaf Bright attacked the field, locally known as Pata Pora disease in several districts in the region and affected the cultivation of yielded Boro paddy.

Despite some damage caused by infection, overall production target is expected to be achieved as the farmers cultivated more 30,000 hectares of land this year, AED officials said. Different banks, including Bangla-desh Krishi Bank, have taken up programmes to disburse necessary loans among the farmers for making this programme a success, the source claimed.

However, farmers in the region are facing some troubles including scarcity of paddy saplings, high price for supplying water by pump owners and yet not getting of non-urea at the subsidized price. During this Correspondent's visit to a few areas in the region farmers said they are facing trouble to collect saplings of paddy that are selling at high prices.

Besides, power pump owners are realizing high price for irrigation in different areas of the region.Farmers said they are to pay one-fourth of reap paddy for supplying water to one bigha since the process of cultivation of the field. On an average, one-fourth of reap paddy amounts to four maunds and its price is Tk 2200 to 2400.

Farmers termed the price too high while several pump owners told this correspondent that it is their tradition for years. They also showed plea of diesel price.Farmers said they are still not getting the subsidised rates of non-urea fertilisers as dealers of different areas are selling these for different prices.

It is mentionable that man paddy was the main crop of Barisal agriculture region and this season this paddy was cultivated on 9,56,901 hectares of land, an increase of 1, 28,001 hectares over the target and produced 18,19,745 lakh metric tonnes of rice, about 2,06,909 tons more production from excess cultivation.