The government has taken 10-year master plan for the development of agriculture in the southern region of the country.
Extensive activities have been undertaken to bring fallow and uncultivated land under farming to grow additional food grains under the plan.
If the 10 lakh 56 thousand hectares of uncultivated land infiltrated by brackish water in the country can be brought under cultivation, a revolution will take place in the field of agriculture.
In the plan taken up in 2014, the priority sectors have been identified as crops, fisheries and livestock, nutrition, water resources management, development of drainage management, agri-trade, agricultural credit, raising the skills of manpower associated with the agricultural sector, etc.
The cost of the implementation of the plan is about Tk57826crore. The master plan is being implemented in Satkhira, Khulna, Bagerhat, Pirojpur, Barishal, Jhalokati, Bhola, Barguna, Patuakhali, Laxmipur, Noakhali, Feni, Chattagram and Cox's Bazar districts.
According to Agriculture Ministry, there are a total of 84 lakh hectares of uncultivated land in the country. Of this, about 25 lakh hectares of land is in the south and south-west. About half of this land is affected by saline water.
According to sources, from June to October every year, the salty water of the sea enters the coastal areas and makes the land saline. A large coastal areas are also becoming saline due to tides. Due to climate change, sea water has infiltrated up to 180 km from the sea shore to the coast.
As a result, the fertile land of the region gradually became saline and unfit for cultivation. In the last decade, sesame and ‘mug dal’ were cultivated in these areas during the dry season. But due to irregular rains, the fields start getting damaged before the sesame and pulses are harvested. As a result, the land remained fallow during the dry season.
To overcome this bottleneck, Soil Research Development Institute’s (SRDI) Salinity Management and Research Center invented a number of technologies through research back in 2011-12, which have gained popularity among farmers in the last few years.
Techniques include farm ponds, pitcher irrigation, two-tiered mulch, watermelon cultivation by planting polybag saplings, wheat cultivation by sowing or changing planting time, etc.
Sources said that as a result of the use of various technologies, three lakh to four lakh hectares of uncultivated saline land has already come under crop cultivation.
In this regard, Director General of SRDI Bidhan Kumar Bhandar said that, “The saline land is being cultivated due to the improvement in soil quality. Some land that was left uncultivated is now under cultivation. SRDI is working on how to produce crops using balanced fertilizers based on soil, water and plant sample analysis”.
“We recommend the use of balanced fertilizers based on the results of the study. If it is possible to increase the quality of soil through research, no land will be out of cultivation in the future”, he added.
