Paddy Field in Bangladesh

Wednesday, September 8, 2021

Paddy Field in Bangladesh

Rice diversity in different geographical environments of Bangladesh

Bangladesh is a rice dependent country. Even though it is small in size, there are thousands of varieties of paddy in this country. According to a survey conducted in 1930, at that time in undivided Bengal, fifteen thousand local varieties of paddy were cultivated in different geographical areas.

Many of us now do not know the names of all those rice. I don't even know which varieties of paddy are being cultivated by the farmers of that region depending on the geographical environment during the paddy season at that time. The 15,000 varieties of paddy that were cultivated in Bangladesh also had beautiful names. Most of those local rice varieties have been lost.

The main reason for the loss of local rice varieties is the introduction of so-called modern agriculture called Ufshi and hybrid rice. From the day the cultivation of Ufshi rice started, the local rice varieties started to disappear.

At present, there are 364 local rice varieties in the collection of Gene Bank of Bangladesh Rice Research Institute. On the other hand, there are about 3000 varieties of local rice in the collection of Ubinig Nayakrishi Andolan. (Up to 2010)

Bangladesh is a country of six seasons but the current season is not available in this country. Before the introduction of Ufshi paddy in this country, all the lands were flooded in the month of Ashar Shravan. As a result, the lion's share of farmers did not get the opportunity to cultivate transplanted Aman paddy by making seedlings separately. Due to which at that time they used to cultivate sown Aman paddy. At that time relatively high lands, where the rains did not rise much, only those lands were planted with Aman paddy.

The people of Bangladesh understand nothing but rice. That is why they are called Veto Bangali. Of course, we have given ourselves the name Veto Bangali.

This rice is from rice and rice is from rice. Durba grass comes with paddy. Because Dhan and Durba are members of the same family, which we commonly call grass. For this, the paddy plant is called grass. It is not wrong to say grazing grass.

Those who do not have extensive agriculture or grow it spontaneously are referred to as rice. But agricultural weeds are usually referred to as paddy or paddy.

This rice is called sali in Tamil. Shali paddy from the Bangladesh-Assam region to Punjab means autumn paddy or Aman paddy.

English ‘Rice’

Chinese traders have been trading on land with Arab-Egyptian countries since ancient times. Among the various products, Chinese silk and rice occupy a prominent place.

In the Ningpo dialect of China, rice was called "Ulij" or "Ulis". This Arabic word is called "Oraj". Which later became Oryza in Greek and ‘Ridge’ in French and ‘Rice’ in English.

‘Rice’ in English means rice but in our country ‘rice’ means rice; The English word for paddy is Paddy.

At present more than half a hundred new varieties of paddy are being cultivated in Bangladesh. These are known as high yielding or modern rice varieties. As well as cultivating hybrid rice. At present, paddy is cultivated in 26 million acres of land every year. Of these, new varieties were planted on 1 crore 8 lakh acres. Cultivation of native varieties is declining rapidly. In the seventies, 98% of the land in our country was cultivated with native varieties of paddy. We may have had to eat less rice then because of the low yield of the native variety, but we were satisfied to eat. By cultivating new varieties, we have increased the production of paddy in the same land 3 times, we can eat more rice but we are less satisfied.