Three new varieties of rice to boost Bengal's paddy production

Kolkata: Scientists of the state Agriculture department have discovered three new varieties of rice, which will ensure further increase in paddy production in Bengal. The scientists of the department, who are posted in its different research institutes, had been working for a period of time on it.

The three new varieties of rice that the people of Bengal are going to get soon in the market are Bhupesh, Rajdip and Dhruba. The production of these varieties has already been started in some places, following necessary tests by the department's scientists.

Asish Banerjee, the state Agriculture minister, said: "All the three varieties of rice will ensure further increase in paddy production in the state."

The state Agriculture department has chalked out an elaborate plan to ensure that all the three varieties are produced in the entire state. The varieties of aromatic flavor will further increase demand of rice from Bengal.

This comes at the time when the Food Corporation of India (FCI) has written to the state Food and Supplies department to supply rice for distribution in three states – Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Jharkhand.

According to experts, the demand was made as Bengal is the highest producer of rice in the country and several varieties of rice are cultivated here.

Moreover, production has increased in the past few years, with several steps being taken by the Mamata Banerjee government. Besides organising training programmes for farmers, tools required for agriculture were also distributed among them.

The new varieties of rice will be cultivated across the state and the production will increase manifold, which will be beneficial for the farmers.

At the same time, a new variety of jute has also been discovered by scientists of the state Agriculture department. The name of the new variety of jute is ARO 4 and cultivating this variety of the crop will help farmers make some profit as its production is comparatively lesser.

It may be recalled that the state Agriculture department has also taken a major step to utilise its land, which remained unused for the most part of a year and sought suggestions of scientists who are working in the field of agriculture.