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PRODUCTION of transplanted aman paddy is likely to fall in Jhenaidah this season.
   Farmers said pests were destroying paddy sheaves, when the harvest was starting. Attack of a harmful pest, mazra, just before the harvest would decrease the production, they said.
   Natural calamities and fertiliser crisis affected the cultivation in the beginning, they said, adding, they worked hard to brave the hindrance. Now the pest attack has upset many farmers.
   While visiting some areas of Khalispur and Jalilpur under Moheshpur upazila, Manaharpur, Damukdia, Pathanpara, Hetampur and Paikpara under Sailkupa upazila this correspondent found that farmers were disappointed with the pest attack at the final stage of production.
   They said the attack of harmful mazra pest was severe in the current season and it would definitely decrease the production.
   Rashidul Hasan, a farmer at village Manaharpur under Sailkupa upazila, said many farmers like him faced severe crisis of urea during the peak season of cultivation.
   The urea crisis has hampered the production significantly. He said, ‘Now I’m upset with the new problem, the pest attack.’
   According to the Department of Agriculture Extension in Jhenaidah, a target has been fixed to produce 2.34 lakh tonnes of paddy on 90,000 hectares of land in the district headquarters, Sailkupa, Harinakunda, Kaliganj, Kotchandpur and Moheshpur upazilas.
   When the farmers expressed their disappointment with the production the deputy director of the Jhenaidah DAE, Abdul Kader Sarkar, contradicted their comments and said the production would exceed the target.
   He claimed that the pest attack was very nominal. ‘Rather, it would be more than the previous years,’ he said.
   Although the farmers brought 89,000 hectares of land under T-aman farming in the district, the yield would be 2.4 lakh tonnes this year, when the target was 2.3 lakh tonnes, Sarkar added.