Farmers waste 800 litres of water to grow a kg of paddy
Even though it is possible to produce 1 kg of paddy using 2,500 litres of water, they use 3,300 litres, not knowing farming methods to reduce the amount of water needed as inputFarmers across the country are misusing some 800 litres of water in producing each kilogram of paddy.Even though it is possible to produce 1 kg of paddy using 2,500 litres of water, they use 3,300 litres, not knowing farming methods to reduce the amount of water needed as input.
Nasiruzzaman, secretary in-charge of Bangladesh’s Ministry of Agriculture, told UNB how farmers in the past used 5,000 litres of water to produce one kg of paddy. That has come down to 3,300 liters.“A farmer has to pay a fixed amount to deep tube-well (used as water source) owners for irrigating a certain size of paddy field for a full season. As a result, there is no incentive for him to save on irrigation as he has to pay the full amount. This is how he misuses the water,” Nasiruzzaman said.
Farmers irrigate their arable land from tube-wells installed by Bangladesh Agricultural Development Corporation (BADC), Barind Multipurpose Development Authority (BMDA), and privately owned tube-wells.There are over 36,000 deep tube-wells, nearly 1.4 million shallow ones, and over 1.6 million hydraulic machines of the state and the private sector.
Farmers typically cultivate 8.4 million hectares of land, that includes 4.7 million hectares for the Boro (season for rice crop) variety, 1.1 million hectares for Aus (season for rice crop), 5.5 million hectares for Aman (season for rice crop), and the rest for wheat cultivation.
Farmers produce 19.5 million metric tons of rice a year – which means billions of liters of water are wasted every year.According to a survey conducted by BADC recently, farmers draw only 25% water from the surface to meet their cultivation needs, and 75% is groundwater pumped by tube-wells.
In 1960-70 it was virtually the opposite: only 20% was groundwater and 80% was surface water.“The agriculture department is going to implement an initiative to reduce groundwater use by 60% within 2030. If farmers keep misusing water, the water table will go down further. So, we’ve to raise their awareness with campaigns in the field, to cut the use of water in cultivation,” Nasiruzzaman said.
Posted by admin
on Jan 17 2019. Filed under Water & Wetland.
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