Growing short-duration rice (BRRI dhan75) enables early harvests and extends the availability of rice grain and straw by 30–40 days. This provides farmers with food and feed early in the season and enables them to grow fodder or high-value crops in crop cycles while diversified winter (rabi) crops like maize and pulses provide supplementary livestock feed. These practices improve food and feed availability during the lean period, boosting food security, farm income, livestock productivity, and milk production, the latter by 30–40 percent. This innovation benefited 5,000 farmers through increased crop diversification and crop-livestock interaction.
In northern Bangladesh, aman (summer or wet season rice)-fallow- boro (dry season rice) is the dominant cropping pattern, covering over 50 percent of the land. Several non-rice (winter) crops such as maize, mustard, potato, carrots, and fodder can be grown between the two rice crops; their optimal planting time is early November. However, this is only feasible if aman rice is harvested before early November. Typically, farmers grow long-duration (130–150 days) aman rice varieties, which are harvested after late November, leading to a fallow period or delayed planting of winter crops and reduced yields. Additionally, in October-November, farmers face a critical shortage of livestock feed and fodder due to limited crop straw reserves and late-harvests of aman rice, resulting in poor livestock health and low milk production.
An impactful solution is replacing long-duration aman rice varieties with short-duration alternatives while utilizing the fallow period for fodder and high-value winter crops. This approach allows farmers to harvest rice earlier, which provides them with food (grain) in the lean period and ensures that feed (straw) is available when livestock feed scarcity peaks, and also enables the timely planting of winter crops.
From 2022 to 2024, the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), under the auspices of the CGIAR Initiative on the Sustainable Intensification of Mixed Farming Systems, co-designed and co- tested innovation bundles of short-duration aman rice varieties in northern Bangladesh. Among these, BRRI dhan75 emerged as the best-performing variety, yielding an average of 5–6 tons per ha of grain and 8–10 tons per ha of fresh green straw. The short-duration aman rice growers harvested their rice crop from mid-October to early-November, securing straw for their livestock during the critical feed scarcity period. Some farmers grew green fodder crops such as alfalfa and berseem while others benefitted from livestock grazing the fields after the rice harvest. Moreover, early planted winter crops produced higher forage yields, complementing straw from rice.
Comparing the new aman rice (short-duration)-winter crop-boro rice cropping system with the traditional aman rice (long-duration)- fallow-boro rice system, researchers observed a 30–60-percent increase in rice equivalent yield (Figure). By the end of 2024, the project had supported over 5,000 smallholder Bangladeshi farmers with a bundle of services including seeds, training, extension services, mechanization, and market linkages to enhance the intensification and diversification of their rice-based cropping systems.
Severe fodder shortages occur in our area during October-November because late-maturing aman rice varieties restrict access to early straw. In 2024, support from the CGIAR Mixed Farming Systems Initiative enabled me to cultivate BRRI dhan75 rice on 50 decimals, which yielded 1,300 kg (1,200 bundles) of green straw with excellent grain yield (1,200 kg). This boosted the milk production of my five cattle by 40 percent; I sold 300 straw bundles to neighbors for a total of USD 15, to neighbors, alleviating their fodder scarcity that season. Additionally, the early rice harvest ensured my family’s food security in the lean period, the increased productivity of my livestock improved my family’s nutrition, and my farm income increased by 15 percent. – Dilip Chandra, a farmer from Gardharmapal village, Nilphamari District, northern Bangladesh.
Photo credit: A woman farmer from Rangpur, Bangladesh is threshing her harvested rice, having received short duration Aman rice seeds and training from the Mixed Farming Systems Initiative, she efficiently separates grains from straw. Photo by Abdul Haque, IRRI