S M Jahangir

Bangladesh Rice Research Institute (BRRI) has developed a technology that can help the country save Tk 5.0 billion annually on account of irrigating rice field.

The Alternate Wet and Drying (AWD) method of rice cultivation can lessen the overall use of water by up to 30 per cent for irrigation, the BRRI sources said.

According to the BRRI, rice farmers are able to save their irrigation cost ranging between Tk 1200 and Tk 1400 per acre through applying the AWD irrigation method.

After its successful test, the Irrigation and Water Management Division (IWMD) of the BRRI started the field-level demonstrations on the AWD method during the current 'Boro' cropping season at seven different places of the country, a senior BRRI official told the FE.

About the new irrigation technology, the BRRI official said farmers require to irrigate their rice fields with only two to three inches of water and to wait until the fields become dry.

At this stage, they have to irrigate the rice fields with two to three inches of water again, instead of the traditional 'flooding practice' of irrigation, the BRRI officials said.

The AWD method not only helps cut the irrigation cost, but it also reduce weed and pests attacks in rice fields, they claimed.

Terming the new irrigating technology a 'significant' achievement, they said it has come as an aid in the wake of falling groundwater level, supply scarcity of fuel and electricity for irrigation and rising cost of rice production.

The BRRI officials have laid emphasis on the need for transferring the new irrigation technology to farmers' level within a shortest possible of time.

Keeping this in view, the Irrigation and Water Management Division of the BRRI in collaboration with the Department of Agricultural Extension (DAE) organised a training programme at its Kapasia Training Centre, Gazipur recently.

More than 50 participants including 30 farmers and 20 Sub Assistant Agricultural Officers took part in the programme.

The BRRI Director General Md Firoze Shah Sikder and senior officials of the Bangladesh Agriculture Research Council (BARC) the BRRI and the DAE were present on the occasion.

Highlighting the impor tance of the AWD technology, the participants of the programmers said the sooner the technology can be reached the farmers' level, the better the country will benefit out of it.