Society Development Committee(SDC)

Md. A. Khaleque Mollah

The iconic Zinc rice farmer

I’m Md. A. Khaleque Mollah, age 52, son of Md. A. Mozid Mollah, is atraditional crop farmer of Habeli Dayarampur village of Gerda Union, Thana Faridpur Sadar under Faridpur district. I inherits 520 decimal agricultural land and conventional cropping knowledge from my father and neighbours.Usually, I cultivated common rice varieties for family consumption yearly and sold the rest amount to ensure agricultural inputs for the next season. Since I had no option to income more, I always optimistically searched for opprtunities to reduce production expenses and to secured best result i.e. better food for my family. In the year 2019, I was introduced to Commercialization of Bio-fortified Crops (CBC) project implemented by SDC with financial and technical assisstance of IFFRI and Harvest Plus Bangladesh. The project selected me one of their rice producer group member. I received technical training on rice cultivation for especially zinc enriched varities. I was so inspired knowing informations of zinc enriched variety about nutritoins, test to consume, yield and price encouraged me to cultuvate these varities. In the year 2019, I for the first time had started cultivating BRRI dhan 74 and BRRI dhan84 in total 104 decimal land separetely 52 and 52 decimal land respevctively. I harvested 1976 Kg and 1664 Kg paddy of BRRI dhan 74 and 84 respectively. I found BRRI dhan84 variety testier than BRRI dhan 74 for consumption. I stored 960 kgs of BRRI dhan84 for yealy consumption and sold the rest. My neighbours and relatives also acknwledged this variety as well after receiving complementary gift from me. Again in 2020, I cultivated BRRI dhan74 in 52 decimal land and BRRI dhan84 in 104 decimal land. This time production reached the optimum level and I got 2080 Kg paddy of BRRI dhan74 variety along with 3432 Kg paddy of BRRI dhan84 variety. As a member of producer’s group ,I was relatively linked with local aggregators. I sold BRRI dhan74 @ BDT 25 and BRRI dhan84 @ BDT 27.5 whereas the maximum rice price in local market was not more than BDT 24. I was hopefully benifitted. For the next year allocated more of my farmlands to extend Zinc rice cultivation. My performance encouraged more than 50 neighbours and nearby farmers to adopt and cultivate  zinc enriched new varieties in rice seasons. Farmers of other lacalities also became interested after hearing  my business success. I enthusiastically disseminated technical knowledge on Zinc rice production to them and also gifted them complementary seeds. Now farmers of my area and adjacents localities have been engaging in more Zinc rice production than regular varieties thus ensure more profit and nutrition for farmers and their fafilies.