Blows to Aman: First drought, now cyclone

Cyclone Sitrang, which hit the coastal districts early today, is likely to cause  damage to the standing Aman paddy.

The Department of Agricultural Extension estimated the damage at around 11 percent of the crop in the country's 13 coastal districts.

Speaking to The Daily Star yesterday, Md Benojir Alam, DAE director general, said, "If the cyclone hits with 110-kilometer wind speeds, we fear some 11 percent of the Aman paddy will be damaged in those 13 districts. If the wind speed is low, the damage will always be less."

The DAE said Aman was cultivated on 56.57 lakh hectares of land across the country, of which around some 11 lakh hectares were in three coastal divisions -- Chattogram, Khulna and Barishal.

Habibur Rahaman Chowdhury, director of the field services wing of the DAE, said the leave taken by any agriculture official on the coastal region was cancelled due to the cyclone.

"We already had meetings with the coastal district agriculture officials and gave necessary instructions for them to support the farmers."

Experts said the cyclone came as a second blow for the Aman production as the planting was previously hampered due to dry weather, and now production will be hampered due to the cyclone.

Aman, the second biggest crop after Boro, is a rain-fed paddy. It accounts for 39 percent of the total grains produced in Bangladesh.

Aman production depends heavily on monsoon rains as the time for preparing seedbeds to transplant seedlings ends during the peak rainy season in June-August.

The unfavourable weather conditions already forced farmers to go for supplementary irrigation to get the expected yield. Now the cyclone is feared to wreak havoc on the production, experts said.

Mohammad Jahangir, agribusiness and marketing professor at Bangladesh Agricultural University, said, "This is a double blow for the Aman -- first a drought and then a cyclone."

He said the paddy was already at an advanced stage of production, but severe winds will cause it to decrease.

"Basically, Aman went through a number of bad patches -- drought, supplementary irrigation, high diesel and fertiliser costs, and now the cyclone."

Alam suggested the government take comprehensive plans to ensure proper Boro production, otherwise it will create a severe situation for the entire staple production of the country.

Meanwhile, people are fearing a massive impact on fishing enclosures in Khulna, Bagerhat and Satkhira due to the tidal surge.

Officials of the Department of Fisheries said a control room was already set up in Dhaka to monitor the situation in the coastal districts.

The department also issued an eight-point directive for the field level to ensure that the fish are not harmed.

In Khulna, there are 206,329 ponds and enclosures. Fish are farmed in at least 191,593 hectares of those.

Probhat Debnath, of Mahmudkati village in Khulna's Paikgacha, said if the water level increases up to four feet, the whole village will be inundated and all the fishing enclosures will wash away.