Amrito Sarkar from Rajshahi
Farmer Mohammad Mukid Dulal from Syedpur village in Godagari upazila of Rajshahi participated in the program with 10 kg of Jhingashail seeds. He will deposit this 10 kg of seeds at Barind seed bank of Tanore upazila of the district and in exchange will take 10 kg Dadkani variety seeds to cultivate in his 2 bighas of land. And other farmers will cultivate Jhingashail variety of paddy from the seeds given by him.
It has been seen that more than 50 farmers from different villages of Tanore Upozila participated in the seed exchange at Barind seed bank. They brought local seeds such as Jhingashail, Magur Shail, Dadkani, Badshabhog, Katari Bhog, Randhunipagal, Kalojira, Rupkatha, Chini Sankar, Diga, Basmati and Ganjia varieties to deposit at the seed bank and in exchange they will take other local varieties of seeds to farm in their lands. The rule for taking seeds from Barindra Seed Bank is to take one kg of seeds and return it to the seed bank after cultivation.
However, Bangladesh Resource Center for Indigenous Knowledge (BARCIK), a non-governmental research institute which was awarded National Environment Medal-2021, and Barindra Seed Bank jointly organized the festival at the village of Dubail in Tanore Upazila during the Aman season. Farmer Nur Mohammad, who received National Agriculture Award-2005 and Bangabandhu National Agriculture Award-2018, presided over the function. Farmers from Mandumal, Bohra, Moin, Chimna, Yogisho, Sahpur and Chinasho villages of Tanore upazila were also present on the occasion. The seed festival has been arranged every year to help farmers getting seeds and exchange seeds with each other through the Barind seed bank which was established by farmers few years back.
Farmer Noor Mohammad said, “Our fellow farmers who had made huge contribution in the establishment of the Barind seed Bank had passed away. We want to protect more than three hundred rice varieties conserved in the bank through our work to keep their contribution alive. Today we have organized this seed exchange festival for that purpose. We will also have a conservation plot with more than 100 varieties in the current Aman season to preserve the seeds of more varieties.’
Translated by Silvanus Lamin
