Agriculture In Bago: Bago Region Aims To Improve Agricultural Productivity

With the guidance of Bago Region Government, the Department of Agriculture in Bago Region is carrying out the processes to increase the agricultural productivity and improve the socio-economic life of farmers.

The Department provide assistance to the farmers such as providing Good Agriculture Practices (GAP), paddy harvesters, fertilizers and insecticides.

Deputy Director, Department of Agriculture, Bago Region, Tin Mya Lwin said “To solve the problems of paddy cultivators, we are encouraging and educating the use of machine harvesters. Upon cultivating GAP fields, we have to perform a soil test in advance. Depending on the test result, we have to calculate and apply the fertilizers proportionately. We also perform pest control by inspecting and putting up boards which shows the types of pest that can occur in respective fields.For harvesting, we will use machine harvesters. In this way, we will increase the crop productivity and become a standard in production of the crops.”

Bago Region has over 3 million acres for cultivations; 2.6 million acres for Monsoon paddy, 307,000 acres for summer paddy, and over 2 million acres of beans and pulses for winter crops.

District Officer, Department of Agriculture, Bago Region, Myo Min Htun said “Despite having over 1.11 million acres of Monsoon paddy fields in Bago District, our demand increases every year. We use over 65% of pure species, and use the traditional way of farming. We also educate the cultivators how to perform the seed production techniques properly from time to time.”

Moreover, plans are underway to expand the sunflower cultivation as the winter crops for food sufficiency in the region.

Deputy Director, Department of Agriculture, Bago Region, Tin Mya Lwin said “In order to possess sufficient oil, we are planning to cultivate sunflowers as oilseed crops at an increase rate within 2022-2023 fiscal years. We aim to cultivate 85,817 acres of sunflower in Bago Region. It would be 9,537 acres of monoculture farming and 76,280 acres of polyculture farming.”

At present, more than 5,800 acres of sunflowers are cultivated this year and the crop capacity turns out to be 167%.