Source: Hueiyen News Service / Sobhapati Samom
Imphal, November 10 2008:
WITH THE technical inputs from the state agricultural department under the sponsorship of North East Council,farmers of Manipur this time managed to break the national record of producing rice in some variety.
This was happened in Manipur's Bishnupur district which covers a major portion of state's well known "rice bowl" comprising with three other valley districts-Imphal West, Imphal East and Thoubal.
After their unsuccessful attempts in the past, farmers of Ethai village in Bishnpur district have recently harvested IR-64,a new rice variety which were grown in an area of 35 hectares and it was found producing a minimum of 33 bags (50 kg per bag) per acre in an average.
"Finally it come up to 7920 kg per hectare which is comparatively higher than that of our National average of 7200 kg per hectare," Pheiroijam Rajendro, Deputy Director, State Agriculture department told this reporter here.
At the time introduction of the rice variety (IR-64), farmers of the village have the apprehension that it may not be suitable for their fields.
But it turn out to be suited to their soil.
"Yes, we have a minimum production of 33 bags (50 kg per bag) per acre on the average" says Karam Gyaneshwar,Secretary of the Plain and Hill Development Organisation who took main role in growing the rice variety in the fields of Ethai area.
In the previous year, they could produced hardly 24 bags of other rice variety.
"We feel satisfied with the IR-64 variety as it has more demand in the market and now we're thinking of cultivating it in 100 hectares in next season," he said.
When asked about the success, he said, "Besides the rice which is being a high yielding variety,is suited to our soil, the inputs provided by the IPM team helps us a lot this time".
Under the NEC sponsored scheme,state agriculture department distributed the new rice variety (IR-64) to the farmers of the Bishnupur district including to the farmers of the model seed villages who followed the Integrated Pest Management(IPM) method of farming this year.
Besides guiding the farmers from time to time,they also supply all the require fertilizers, pesticides, insecticides to the farmers free of cost under the scheme.
The rice variety was grown in 1195 hectares of field extending across the Bishnupur district as part of the agriculture department's experiment.
The harvesting of the rice had started in the last few days and IPM team has been observing the harvesting to know the actual potential of this new variety of rice and it yields.
With the enhance production in their fields, farmers have now feel happy with the new rice variety and congratulated the staffs.
"As we came to know that the rice variety is suited to the soil of the state, not only in Bishnupur district, the department will start campaign for extension of cultivation of the same variety to other fields across the state" Rajendro who took a great initiative in the introduction of the rice to the farmers informed.