Country possesses 88.29 lakh ha arable land, 91,277 ha fallow land: Dr Razzaque

Agriculture Minister Dr M Abdur Razzaque today said country’s arable is 88 lakh 29 thousand and 266 hectares while some 91,277 hectares arable land remain as fallow.

The minister said this while responding to a query raised by treasury bench lawmaker Kazim Uddin Ahmed of Mymensingh-11 during question-answer session which was tabled at the Jatiya Sangsad here with Speaker Dr Shirin Sharmin Chaudhury in the chair.

The Department of Agricultural Extension (DAE) is implementing three types of demonstrations on the fallow land at the households in all upazilas under installation of family nutrition garden project.

So far, a total of 2,52,096 family nutrition gardens, demonstration of ginger/turmeric cultivation on 3,941 spots and installation of 3,926 edible root vegetable demonstration plots on the marshy land.

Even a total of nearly 2.60 lakh demonstrations have been implemented resulting in nearly 1690.44 hectors of fallow land came under cultivation.

Area has been extended by cultivating different stress tolerant varieties including saline tolerant varieties like BRRI Dhan 73, BRRI Dhan 97, BRRI Dhan 99, BINA Dhan 8 and BINA Dhan 10 at the coastal region, unused or fallow land under various government institutes has already come under cultivation and target has been set to bring 70,000 hectares of land in Sylhet region in next five year through modern technology. (BSS)