Thursday, September 4, 2014

Use less urea for green Bangladesh, says Matia

Staff Correspondent

Agriculture Minister Begum Matia Chowdhury urged the farmers of the country to adopt Urea Deep Placement (UDP) Technology in the rice field for making the country greener and safer from the global warming.

She also said if UDP technology is adopted widely then it can reduce the urea usage in the field drastically as well as increase the rice yielding up to 15 per cent.

Agriculture Minister said it as the chief guest at a national workshop organised by International Fertilizer Development Centre (IFDC) under the Accelerating Agriculture Productivity Improvement (AAPI) project on "Mitigation of Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Emissions through Urea Deep Placement (UDP) Technology from Rice Field" at Bangladesh Agricultural Research Council (BARC) on Tuesday.

She added we are the worst victim of climate change and the emissions of GHG make us more vulnerable to nature. She suggested for continuing and expanding GHG emissions mitigation research in diversified crops and cropping patterns. Secretary of Agriculture Ministry Dr S M Nazmul Islam and USAID Mission Director Ms Janina Jaruzelski were present as the special guests while Executive Chairman of BARC Dr Md Kamal Uddin chaired the inaugural session of the workshop.

Senior Scientist and Coordinator of Rice and Climate Change Consortium of International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) Dr Reiner Wassmann presented the keynote paper entitled "Assessing the Suitability of Mitigation Options in Rice Production Derived from Bio-physical Considerations and Stakeholders' Perceptions" and AAPI Deputy Chief of Party Dr Yam Kanta Gaihre presented the workshop paper entitled "Assessing the Impacts of Urea Deep Placement on Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Mitigation Potential under Continuous Rice Cropping Systems" while Resident Representative of IFDC Bangladesh and Project Coordinator and Chief of Party of the AAPI project Ms Ishrat Jahan provided an overview of the AAPI-GHG project in the workshop.

Dr Reiner in his presentation stated the benefits of adopting water saving irrigation technology - Alternate Wetting and Drying (AWD) in rice production.

Dr Yam highlighted the mitigation options of GHG emissions from rice field using UDP technology. He mentioned that nitrous oxide has 298 times higher potential for global warming than carbon dioxide. He claimed that UDP and AWD are climate smart technologies and adoption of those technologies could significantly mitigate greenhouse gas emissions from rice agriculture.

Ms Ishrat highlighted that UDP technology reduced nitrogen losses as ammonia volatilization and emissions of greenhouse gas nitrous oxide compared with broadcast application of urea.

About 300 participants from home and abroad attended the workshop and the project was funded by United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

(Repost from The Daily Observer, Bangladesh)

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