In the haor belt, standing boro rice crop on over 22, 000 hectares was damaged by flash floods and hailstorms until Thursday, said Department of Agricultural Extension officials.
The crops were damaged in the districts of Sylhet, Sunamganj, Moulavibazar, Netrokona and Kishoreganj, they said.
Farmers in the haor belt grew boro rice on over four lakh hectares, they said.
The expressed fears that the damage to the haor belt’s boro crop by flash floods could increase as the harvest time was approaching.
Harvest of the early boro crop planted in December and January began in limited scale, said DAE officials.
Water logging in the low lying boro fields, they said, became a cause for big concerns to the growers.
Shortage labourers for the harvest of boro rice is also a cause for concern for the farmers, they said.
Frequent flash floods, caused by sudden on rush of waters from upstream India, remain a source of perennial concern for the haor belt’s farmers, DAE officials told New Age.
Nadira Akhter, a government employee at Bianibazar, Sylhet, told New Age Saturday that heavy rains together with hailstorms in the region over the last 15 days submerged large tracts of boro fields making it difficult for the farmers to reap their crops.
High school teacher at Bianibazaar Anisur Rahman said that farmers in the area were worried that their boro crop had been submerged at the harvest stage.
Nonstop rains over the last two weeks, he said, caused extensive water logging.
DAE field service wing director Chaitanya Kumar Das told New Age that Sunamganj suffered flash floods several times in recent days.
He said that Netrokona and Kishoreganj districts were facing the risks of the flash floods.
The damage to the haor belt’s standing boro crop by flash floods would increase in the coming days, he said.
Chaitanya Kumar said that the farmers in the haor belt began reaping their boro crop.
Source: New Age