A case
study of IR 64:
Northern Bangladesh basically is the poorest area, where
almost hundred percent farmers are cultivating aman (monsoon) rice.
Here, farmers are cultivating long-duration rice variety like BR11, Swarna,
etc. in aman season, which requires 145-170 days. Generally farmers are
preparing the seedbed and seeding the seeds in late June and then main land
preparation, transplanting the rice seedlings in main field in late July and
then intercultural operations like top-dressing, weeding, etc. to be done in
August. After that, there is little farming field operation required from
mid-September to mid-November in the rice field until harvest starts in late
November. This is the main cause of famine like situation (monga) in
northern Bangladesh. The majority of the people (70%) in this area are
dependent on agriculture. Since monsoon rice (aman) cultivation is
universal so more than 70% of day laborers and hardcore poor households are
fully dependent on employment in various stages of rice cultivation. Hence, there are few alternative job
opportunities in mid-September to mid-November period.
Normally
in high and medium high land, farmers go for wheat/potato/winter crops
cultivation after harvesting of aman rice. The proper time to cultivate
these crops in northern Bangladesh is in November. But due to presence of aman
rice in most of the lands in November, farmers have no scope to cultivate such
winter crops (rabi) in right time. This delayed cultivation hampers
normal yield and also increases the production cost of potato, wheat etc. The
short duration rice variety like IR 64 sub 1 may be introduced in aman
season, where farmers may able to harvest rice in the month of October and then
farmers go for winter crops like potato, wheat etc. in right time i.e. in early
November and ensure higher yield with reduced production cost.
A
NGO Bangladesh, a national NGO conducted research and extension on short
duration rice based cropping pattern from 2003 to mitigate monga (famine
like situation) in northern Bangladesh. Through these experiments, it is now
possible to ensure jobs for landless agricultural day laborers to harvest short
duration rice in October and thus secure food security in lean period
(October), which helps reducing monga from northern Bangladesh. But
still in this area, almost in every year thirty to fifty thousand hectares of aman
rice damages due to late flood, which occurred almost in every year due to
climate change. As northern Bangladesh surrounded by thirty rivers and around
three million people of reverine areas are severely affected as they lost their
aman rice in every year due to late flood, so, food security of such
three million people are still remaining in a big question!
The
late flood occurred only for one to two weeks as flash floods during late
August to early September and damages all aman rice fields. Thousand to
thousand farm households have no way to recover this aman rice and after
damaging of such aman rice crops, they need to re-transplant the same
and some of them need to wait for next crop in rabi (winter) season.
IR
64 sub 1 rice variety which was developed by IRRI, now proved as tremendous
solutions to overcome monga. Might be IR 64 sub 1 is only the rice
variety, which contains two very important characters; one is flood tolerant
capacity and another one is short duration nature. Under Bill and Melinda Gates
project, A NGO piloted this variety in flood-affected area and receives a very
good result at farmers level. All demonstration plots of this variety along
with other traditional rice fields were gone under water during flash floods in
last monsoon (17-29 August 2009), where farmers needed to re-transplant of
their traditional rice field after recession of water, but all plots under sub
1 variety were still okay and harvested after 120-130 days of seeding with
ensuring 4 ton yield per hectare.
Besides
this, drought was observing during October in each year, which time is very
critical for traditional rice, as its panicle initiation stage falling in
October. Due to scarce of adequate moisture during October, most of the
panicles of traditional varieties contained maximum empty grains, which causes
reduced yield. To overcome this problem, farmer needs to provide 4-5 times
supplementary irrigation, but IR 64 sub 1 farmers harvested their crop in
October for its short life duration, so that farmers not require any
supplementary irrigation, which helps to reduce production cost. Same way, it
was also observed that severely pest infestations occurred during drought in
October, where farmers sprayed pesticides to control pests and diseases. But as
IR 64 sub 1 has become matured in October, so no need to use any pesticides
during this period, which also helps to reduce production cost with ensuring
better environment with safe food.
The
main benefits has received by IR 64 sub 1 farmers, where it was possible for
them to cultivated following winter crops like potato, mustard in right time
that was in early November. It was the first time for IR 64 sub 1 farmers,
those who able to sown their crops in early November. In northern Bangladesh,
more than 90% of the farmers are not able to cultivate winter crops in right
time (early November) due to standing aman rice in the field. So they
need to wait at least one month to cultivate such winter crops. On the other
hand, wintertime is reducing as an impact of climate change, which causes
severely pest and disease infestations in February that causes poor performance
of winter crops. A three years research findings of A NGO revealed that there
had no need to use any pesticides in 1st week potato planting, where
pesticides were used more than 20 times in 1st week of December
planting.
Also
a recent research findings in A NGO India Farm, IR 64 sub 1 can be transplanted
6”X6” distance instead of 8”X8” distance to obtain higher population and thus
better yield. Under 8”X8” distance, the yield was 3.3 ton per hectare, where
the yield was recorded as 4.1 ton per hectare under 6”X6” distance. Also
seedlings age of IR 64 sub 1 should be considered to transplant with in 22 to
25 days due to its short life cycle. As rice grain of IR 64 sub 1 is in medium
size, so market price is also some higher as compared with other coarse rice.
So,
short duration as well as flood tolerant IR 64 sub 1 rice variety is now
attracting the farm households as a miracle rice variety, where farmers and agricultural
day laborers can get rice in monga months (October) as well as they can
save their rice from late floods. Based on the performances of IR 64 sub 1 as
flood tolerant as well as early maturing nature this year, A NGO includes the
said variety for its monga mitigation programme in next year as most
promising short duration as well as flood tolerant rice variety.
From
farmer’s point of view, there are some considerable measures to get a good
harvest from IR 64 sub 1 rice cultivation. These are:
·
Seedlings
age should be below 30 days for transplanting in the main field
·
Spacing
for transplanting should be only 6 inchesX6 inches. In case of poor soil,
spacing may reduce as 6 inchesX4 inches.
·
All
urea top-dress should be completed with in 50 days of transplanting.
This
year, A NGO implemented a number of demonstrations on IR 64 sub 1 rice variety
under IRRI-BMGF project and received an outstanding performance to this end. It
is the first time for such farmers to observe IR 64 sub 1 as short duration as well
as flood tolerant rice variety as it was fully under water around 10 to 15 days
and survived easily without having any damages. Also farmers of IR 64 sub 1
harvested their crop by 125 days and ensured 4 ton yield per hectare. After
getting glorious success to this end, A NGO decided to promote IR 64 sub 1 rice
variety in it’s monga mitigation as well as climate change programme in
next year due to it’s short duration nature as well as flood tolerant
capacity.