Abu Zafar Ahmed, a farmer of Mohanpur village under Godagari upazila, has been cultivating guava on eight bighas of land for the last couple of years.
He had to arrange irrigation to the orchard regularly through a pump by burning 50-60 liters of diesel per week as there was no deep tube well. In order to curtail his excessive irrigation cost Ahmed installed a solar power-dependent drip irrigation technology in his guava orchard with financial support from the recently phase-out Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM) project. At present, there is no irrigation cost, but previously, he had to spend Taka 15,000 per month on average for only irrigation purposes.
The IWRM project provided 80 percent and he spent the rest twenty percent of the Taka 5.5 lakh scheme. Not only Ahmed's orchard but four other drip units were commissioned in other areas irrigating more than 40 bighas of farmlands.
Shafiul Islam Mukta, a resident of Godagari upazila said, has developed three dragon orchards on 52 bighas of land in Gogram and Matikata areas. Relating to the production cost, he said around Taka 2.60 lakh is required for dragon farming on one bigha of land.
Different types of modern and cost-effective irrigation technologies are being promoted in the region including its vast Barind tract, to reduce the gradual mounting cost of irrigation besides boosting soil productivity.
Many of the farmers avail the scopes of being familiarized with water-saving technologies like drip irrigation, fertigation, and alternate furrow irrigation in their farmlands in the region during the last Rabi season.
Nongovernment organization DASCOH Foundation and Swiss Red Cross have implemented the IWRM project in drought-affected 39 Unions and three municipalities in Rajshahi, Chapainawabganj, and Naogaon districts supported by Switzerland.
Jahangir Alam Khan, who was the coordinator of the IWRM project, said they worked with the main thrust of building the UP like local government institutions as effective and pro-people institutions through farmers' level sustainable water resource management amidst people participation.
He said the drip irrigation method consumes 50 to 60 percent less water than that of conventional systems. The solar system pump has the capacity to provide irrigation to more than 2,000 bighas of cropland around the year.
The method also helps to reduce fertilizer use by at least 45 percent as it has the provision of mixing fertilizer with irrigation water. As the system is dependent on solar power the matter of fuel saving is also important. So, the time has come to expand such a method further in the Barind area.
Khan also said many of the entrepreneurs have set up dragon orchards and are doing successful business in different areas of the dried region after the best uses of drip irrigation technology.
Gogram UP Chairman Mujibur Rahman said the newly-commissioned solar power-based drip irrigation pumps have opened up a new door in the agriculture sector as farmers can boost their farming yields through the irrigation facilities around the year. In addition to benefiting the farmers economically, the pumps are contributing to reducing the gradually increasing pressure on the power supply. Prof Mijanur Rahman of the Department of Geography and Environmental Sciences at Rajshahi University said the power produced through fossil fuel is carbon contaminated and that it always pollutes the environment. Besides, its production cost is high. However, solar system power generation is a new idea, that is renewable, has less production cost, and is carbon-free.
As a whole, the solar system has a significant contribution towards lessening the pressure on the gradually increasing power demands. He said the farmers will no longer depend on the mercy of power supply for crop production if the solar irrigation system functions successfully.
Source: Online/GFMM
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