Professor Dr Muhammad Aslam Ali of Environmental Science Department at BAU along with Professor Dr PJ Kim of Gyeongsang National University, South Korea has conducted the study, reports DhakaTribune.

"It is not realistic to reduce crop production as a huge amount of greenhouse gases are emitting from the crop fields for using traditional fertilisers. So, we have to find every possible ways to minimise the greenhouse gas emissions," said Professor Aslam Ali.

From this aspect, he said, they had conducted research with technical support from Gyeongsang National University. "We have done research by using various bio-fertilisers combined with traditional nitrogenous fertilisers to minimise methane and other greenhouse gas emissions."

Other members of the research team were Dr Murad Ahmed Farukh and Jahangir Alam, a master’s student of the same department.

Researchers had used compost, decomposed cow dung, town compost, bio-gas slurry, poultry droppings and vermin (worm) compost combined with nitrogenous fertilisers in 21 experimental plots. Then produced gases were collected from the gas chambers set up in each plot by using syringe and analysed at the Environmental Chemistry Lab of Gyeongsang National University.

"Finally, we have found that poultry droppings and vermin compost are the most effective bio-fertilisers that produce 20-35 per cent less methane and other greenhouse gas compared to others," said Dr Aslam.

Besides, rice production significantly increased and production costs also reduced, he added.

He stressed the need for creating awareness among the farmers of the country and urged all and organisations concerned to be aware of greenhouse effects.

"If we cannot be able to cut greenhouse gas emissions immediately, coastal areas in the world including Bangladesh would go under water by 2050," Dr Aslam said. He advised to use advanced agri-technologies and organic fertilisers in crop fields to reduce greenhouse effects as well as retain the soil fertility and cut production costs.

He suggested that the government and institutions concerned launch mass campaign for using these two organic fertilisers in crop lands to minimise greenhouse gas emissions and make the earth liveable for all.

The demand for foods for the growing people of the country is increasing day by day and farmers of the country are indiscriminately using various nitrogenous fertilisers in their crop lands to boost production of rice and other crops to meet huge demand.

As a result, a huge amount of carbon or methane gas, commonly known as greenhouse gas responsible for global warming, is being released in the air mostly emitted from these inorganic fertilisers.

Of a wide variety of sources of atmospheric greenhouse gases, paddy fields are considered one of the most important sources and emitting about 5-20 per cent of the total emissions from all anthropogenic sources.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) estimated that the global emission rate from paddy fields was 60 Teragram/yr with a range of 20-100 Tg/yr.