One of Bangladesh's local champions

Bangladesh is one of the world’s most densely populated countries. Poverty has been one of the main problems of the country, where most farmers struggle to make do with small areas of land and limited resources. Luckily, Bangladesh has been blessed with a good climate for growing rice, and the crop grows in almost all parts of the country.

Fortunately for Bangladesh, too, there are dedicated and hard-working people like Dr. Md. Abdul Mazid, who has spent most of his life’s efforts to help uplift the country from poverty and hunger. Dr. Mazid is a principal scientific officer and head of the Bangladesh Rice Research Institute (BRRI) Regional Station at Rangpur.

Dr. Mazid’s career at the BRRI spans almost three decades, from the time he started as scientific officer in 1977, working at the Gazipur headquarters, to becoming head of the regional station at Rangpur. BRRI has had a long and fruitful collaboration with IRRI. Dr. Mazid in particular has worked with a number of IRRI scientists, and more recently with Dr. David Johnson and the IRRC Labor Productivity Work Group.

Aside from being head of the regional station at Rangpur, he also serves as a site coordinator of the Consortium for Unfavorable Rice Environments (CURE) Work Group-2 (Submergence- and Flood-prone Environment) and the Labor Productivity Group (formerly called Weed Ecology Working Group).

In addition, Dr. Mazid is a collaborator with several other projects and institutions.

“I have been working on crop establishment methods, weed control options, and nutrient and water management on rice and rice-based cropping systems like rice-potato-relay maize, rice-wheat-mungbean, and rainfed rice-chickpea to mitigate monga (i.e., rice harvest during the ‘hungry’ months of October to November),” explains Dr. Mazid. His projects are aimed toward achieving food security and creating employment opportunities and thus reducing poverty in the northwest region of Bangladesh through collaboration between government and nongovernment organizations.

Dr. Mazid is ecstatic with the newest developments in rice research in Bangladesh, such as the switch of crop establishment methods from traditional transplanting of rice (TPR) to direct-seeded rice (DSR) in early aman (wet season) and boro (dry season) rice. He sees, however, that the main problem is in information dissemination and technology transfer. “I find direct-seeded rice technology very promising, but the biggest challenges are the slow dissemination of information to farmers due to limited extension service, and the large information or knowledge gaps on DSR technology and herbicide use between the extension providers and farmers,” he explains.

However, he does not lose heart and believes that, to solve this communication problem, there should be technology dissemination through government organization–nongovernment organization collaboration through farmers’ field schools, regular monitoring, and conducting refresher training courses for field workers and farmer promoters. He suggests preparing farmers’ need-based training modules on the mentioned technologies to reduce poverty and improve livelihood. He adds that good “training of trainers” using multimedia presentations should be organized by researchers and the media. Mass media can also be tapped to promote these technologies through television and radio programs and commercials, and print such as posters and leaflets.

Aside from the boom of DSR in Bangladesh, Dr. Mazid is also enthusiastic about the increasing use of herbicides for cost-effective weed control on rice, the introduction of crop diversification such as maize cultivation-mungbean-potato-vegetables in a rice-based system, and rice research for unfavorable rice environments.

With all the activities he has to do each day, what he enjoys most is closely supervising experiments, finding out the gaps and sharing the experiments with his colleagues. “I enjoy most when I demonstrate our success and activities to others and visitors,” reveals Dr. Mazid. And since one of his hobbies is photography, he incorporates this love for pictures into his work by taking pictures of ongoing activities and preparing good presentations for trainers’ training.

When he’s not busy with work, his top priority is spending time with his family. “I work hard in the office and then return home, relax with my wife and children by eating homemade food, talking, and watching TV together,” reveals Dr. Mazid. He also proudly explains that his wife, Sultana Begum, “cooks very well and is excellent and experienced in sewing ladies’ dresses.” The couple has been blessed with three kids, with eldest daughter Sharmin Subrina, who now lives with her husband in Australia; elder son S.M. Mehedi Zaman, who is taking up his bachelor of science degree in electronics and electrical engineering at the American International University in Bangladesh (AIUB); and youngest son, S. M. Mahiuzzaman, a ninth-grader studying at Dhaka.

Dr. Mazid hopes to develop location-specific, need-based technologies, especially on crop establishment methods, water saving, and crop diversification, as well as on cost-effective weed control options focusing on the interaction of weeds and nitrogen use (aided by the leaf color chart). Moreover, since one of Bangladesh’s main problems is constant flooding, he hopes to be able to select a variety and best-bet technology suitable for flash- flood submergence-prone areas.

All these efforts, he said, will not go to waste, for the country he loves most because of its “hospitality and environment.”

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