Farmers are registering reduced profitability from paddy cultivation due to tightening of the rural labour market and declining real prices for the cereal grain, according to a joint study by two international research organisations.

For the first time in his 30 years of farming, Samaresh Mondal is growing dry-season rice, locally named Boro, along with 50 of his peers in a synchronised manner in their locality of Satibunia under Botiaghata upazila of Khulna.

Paddy farmers in the northern districts have struggled to turn a profit for the past five years, as production costs have risen significantly but rice prices have not increased proportionally.

Zinc-enriched paddy cultivation is expanding day by day across five districts of the Rangpur division thanks to increased demand for the crop given its immunity-boosting properties. 

Paddy farmers in the Chalan Beel region of Rajshahi, Pabna, Sirajganj and Natore are concerned about whether they can achieve their expected yields this year as early floods have badly damaged their crops in the vast wetland.

Agriculture engineers of Bangladesh Sugarcrop Research Institute (BSRI) have come up with a new technology of cultivating paddy as co-crop with sugarcane.