Bangladesh News

A drought persisting in the northern region, especially Rajshahi and its adjoining districts, has badly affected Aman cultivation, jute and other crops in vast areas.

With only one and a half months of the four-month monsoon still to go, over 60 per cent Aman fields are lying fallow due to poor rainfall while Aman seedlings in the cultivated fields are drying up under the blazing sun.

While most areas in the region are usually flooded during monsoon, croplands have developed cracks this season.

As most water bodies are drying up, growers are facing problems in fermenting jute fibres. Besides, standing jute crops in many fields are withering due to scorching heat.

Abdus Salam, deputy director of Agricultural Extension Department, Rajshahi division, said, “The situation might improve only if it rained fairly heavy over the next two weeks.”

The monsoon that lasts from June to September usually sees immense flooding every year but the Padma is now flowing around three metres below its danger level at different points, said hydrological experts of Water Development Board.

Water level in the river this season is the lowest since 2002.

Officials at Rajshahi Divisional Met Office said, rainfall was 189 mm in June this year against 396 mm in June last year. In July last year, rainfall was 493.4 mm against 125 mm in July this year.

The prolonged drought has hit hard Aman growers particularly. The seedlings are drying up in the fields and only the well-off farmers are arranging supplementary irrigation.

The supplementary irrigation is also uncertain in most cases because of power outage due to load shedding.

Weather experts said monsoon is playing truant in Bangladesh this year though it was ‘fully active’ in India and Myanmar.

Environmental Science Institute Director at Rajshahi University Prof Sarwar Jahan said, “There is nothing to be worried at the strange climate as rains in the country depend on monsoon wind that is currently inactive over the Bay of Bengal, creating depressions.”

Prof Dr Chowdhury Sarwar Jahan Sajal of Geology and Mining Department, however, said scientists in the world are divided on whether climate changes are results of El Niño events in recent decades, or El Niños are contributing to global warming.

“There is no consensus on it yet. But evidence is mounting that there is at least an indirect relationship between El Niño and climate change.”