Staff Correspondent
A crop disease which has yet to be identified is devastating maize fields in the western district of Chuadanga, dashing the hopes of local farmers to turn a profit from producing the cereal grain.
Golam Faruq, director general of the Bangladesh Wheat and Maize Research Institute, said a three-member team of scientists was dispatched to investigate the situation yesterday
“So, we will get to know the reason within a couple of days,” he added.
Farmers say the disease initially causes the roots to dry out before eventually rotting, resulting in the damage of the corncob during the milk stage.
“Some of my neighbours whose fields were affected sold their plants as cattle feed at half the price they would have received if the crop was ripe,” said Md Mamun Hossain, a farmer of Kotali village under Chuadanga, a major maize producing district.Hossain then said that one-and-a-half bighas of his four bigha plantation has been infected by the disease.
All in all, maize being grown on nearly 40 bighas of land in the region have been afflicted.
He went on to say that there was a similar outbreak of the disease in 2020, but the extent of damage is far more widespread this year.Wasim Akram Royal, a farmer of the Darshana area in Chuadanga, said it is a really big problem for growers when any disease causes plant roots to rot.Citing how his farm is still unaffected, Royal said people who planted maize early in the season are being attacked by the disease.
Md Mizanul Hoque, senior vice president of the Maize Association of Bangladesh, said the government should deal will this issue on a priority basis to protect the crops from further damage.
Maize, once an alien crop to Bangladesh, is now the country’s second biggest cereal grain after rice.
Maize production is expected to increase this year as farmers, encouraged by profitable prices, have expanded cultivation.
In early December, the Food and Agriculture Organisation forecasted that the country would bag 48 lakh tonnes of maize in 2022, up 2 per cent from a year ago.
This amount is 30 per cent higher than the five-year average of 37 lakh tonnes, it said, adding that remunerative prices for maize and strong domestic demand propelled the expansion of cultivation.
Bangladesh requires up to 75 lakh tonnes of maize for making animal feed, starch and human consumption.
Poultry farms are the largest feed consumers in Bangladesh, and corn accounts for 50-60 per cent of the raw materials used in poultry feed, the US Department of Agriculture said in a report.

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