Wheat output likely to slide by 40 pc in 10 S-W dists
Amanur Aman, Kushtia
Wheat production this year in 10 southwestern districts is likely to fall short of the target by around 40 per cent as farmers did not cultivate the crop on targeted lands. Farmers trimmed wheat cultivation as they incurred losses due to poor yield last year, agriculture officials said. Around 56,000 hectares were brought under wheat cultivation this year in the 10 districts against a target of 64578 hectares, sources in Agricultural Extension Department (AED) said. The area under cultivation was 70330 hectares against the target of 10690 in Jessore; 7550 against 13,110 in Jhenidah; 10,000 against 12,195 in Magura; 2,455 in Narail against 3,388; 90 in Khulna against 135, 1,814 in Satkhira against 2,190; 68 in Bagerhat against 70; 1,1800 in Kushtia against 20,620; 6,150 in Chuadanga against 1,090 and 8,790 hectares in Meherpur against 1,090. The worst situation is in Kushtia, where the cultivation was about half of the target, the sources said. "I cultivated rice instead of wheat this year because of loss from wheat last year," said farmer Abdul Zabbar at Khoksa upazila in Kushtia. Farmers said the average yield was between one and two maunds per bigha last year, which was much below the average yield of 5 to 6 mounds earlier. This forced them not to go for wheat cultivation this year, they said. Bangladesh Agriculture Development Corporation (BADC) distributed about 961 tones of wheat seeds among dealers for sale to farmers this year. But most of the dealers sold out the seeds to flour mills as farmers did not buy those, sources said.
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