Tapos Kanti Das
A fungal disease known as neck blast, which is seriously affecting the hybrid Jhalak and Sarathi varieties of paddy plants in the south, is the result of improper seed purification, use of old seeds and unfavourable weather, agricultural extension officials suspect.
Several hundred hectares of land in Barisal, Noakhali, Feni, Comilla, Lakshmipur and Gopalganj, where the Jhalak seed, imported from China by Energypac Agro Limited has been used, have been affected by the disease with many fields not producing any paddy.
About 115 hectares of paddy fields in Barisal, 1,700 hectares in Noakhali, 350 hectares in Gopalganj, and around 100 hectares in Lakshmipur have been affected by the disease, according to reports received from the districts.
Report received from Barisal said that the Chinese origin hybrid Sarathi, imported by the Metal Agro Limited, cultivated on seven hectares of land at Agailjhara in Barisal had also suffered from the disease.
The farmers worried that they will lose all the financial investments in growing the seeds and will face utter poverty are demanding that the government and the importer should provide them with compensation.
The fungal and seed-borne disease can be identified when the sheaves come out from the plants going rotten within two to three days, officials said, adding that as a result, the sheaves do not contain any food grain.
The seed has been cultivated in Bangladesh for two years and this year the farmers were encouraged to cultivate the seeds as the rice quality is good and production was better in the last season, DAE deputy director (rice) Md Sohrab Uddin said.
'I cultivated on two bighas of my land with the Jhalak seed taking micro-credit loan
from different non-governmental organisations but I am getting no paddy this year,' said farmer Abu Bakkar of Jola at Wazirpur in Barisal.
He demanded compensation from the government and the seed providers as field-level government officials encouraged farmers to cultivate hybrid seeds and the seed providers provided them with 'infected seeds.'
'It [neck blast] is a seed-borne disease and the seeds might not have been purified properly when they were produced,' said Helal Uddin, the head of the Bangladesh Rice Research Institute in Barisal.
He said that the variety of seed might have problems and expressed his anxiety that the disease might spread to adjacent areas as the germs spread through the air and affect the seed paddy in the surrounding areas affecting it in subsequent years.
A high official of the food crops wing of the Department of Agricultural Extension in Dhaka also alleged that the seed had not been tested properly in quarantine during import.
He also alleged that the seed sellers might have provided the old seed of the past year that could not tolerate the weather.
DAE field service wing additional director (extension) Anil Chandra Sarker told New Age that he blamed high temperature and humidity in the districts that was favourable for the disease outbreak.
He said that the loss to the farmers was irreparable and they were pressuring the seed providers to compensate the farmers.
The agriculture ministry director general (seed), Anwar Faruque, told New Age that he had been informed of the crop failure and had directed the authorities concerned to find out the reasons behind it.
He said that an investigation into whether the seeds were checked properly in quarantine during import was now going on.
The Seed Certification Agency director Md Bashir Uddin told New Age that the seed was allowed to sell on the market after successfully completing two seasons' trial.
The New Age correspondent in Gopalganj reports that farmers who cultivated their land with Jhalak were frustrated at the crop failure and filed applications seeking compensation from the district agricultural extension office and Energypac's sole dealer in the district.
Farmer Suranjan Mandal of Raghunathpur in Gopalganj district headquarters told New Age that he had to spend at least Tk 10,000 to cultivate 65 decimal of land and was now cutting the plants to use as fodder.
He said that he had appealed to the district agricultural extension office and to the dealer demanding compensation.
Mohammad Sentu, manager of the only Jhalak dealer in the district Madhumati Enterprise, said that a good number of farmers had informed them and asked for their compensation. 'We have already told the importer about the situation.'
Gopalganj DAE deputy director Bhashkar Chakrabarti said that Jhalak seeds were imported from China and they had received about a hundred applications from the farmers seeking compensation.
The correspondent in Barisal reports that farmers were struggling to face a massive crop failure of hybrid varieties Jhalak and Sarathi cultivated in Barisal.
The Jhalak variety was cultivated on 115 hectares and Sarathi on seven hectares in Wazirpur and Agailjhara and the plants were mostly attacked by neck blast disease.
Habibur Rahman, a scientific officer at the Rice Research Institute in Barisal, said that hybridisation of the seeds might not have been done and the quarantine period and the trial test might not have been followed properly, which led to the crop failure.
'We are suggesting compensation for the farmer by the seed supplier responsible for the loss and we have submitted a report to our office,' he added.
Tapan Kumar Majumdar, marketing officer of the Metal agro Limited, blamed temperature fluctuation for the disease and said that they had supplied only 150 kilograms of seeds to Barisal and the dealer informed him of the disease outbreak.
He, however, failed to tell anything about maintaining plant quarantine and test farming before the hybrid seeds were marketed.
The Energypac Agro Limited's senior vice-president SB Naseem told New Age that they had released 72 tonnes of hybrid Jhalak seed on the market and it was used in both the south and the north but the disease broke out only in the south.
Claiming that the seeds were imported after proper purification in all stages, he blamed the weather for the outbreak of the disease in the south. He also blamed use of excessive urea.
'It was not for reasons created by us [the company],' he claimed.
He, however, said that they were still willing to help the farmers with seeds and fertiliser.
Source: New Age
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