Other sources said an ongoing power crisis had hampered irrigation, but could not damage the crops severely, while the dry weather would help yield 2,00,000 tonnes of wheat more than the target of 1.8 million tonnes. But booming harvests were not across the board. In Bogra district of northern Bangladesh, farmer Shahadat Hossain told The Bhorer Kagoj daily: ``The yield could have been better here but an unknown kind of fungus curtailed theoutput.''

Officials of the multinational drug manufacturer Novartis, which also makes pesticides, said in Naogaon district, also in the north, a plant disease called ``Kholchapa'' had damaged crops. The disease hits paddy fields due to dryness and inadequate use of fertilisers, they said.

Jute production has also been hit as farmers could not plant seedlings, and in Sylhet district of north-eastern Bangladesh, tea plantations were suffering because of the drought.

``Tea production might fall by 20 per cent this year because of unprecedented drought,'' Quamrul Islam Chowdhury, chairman of the Bangladesh Tea Association, told AFP. But elsewhere, ``we are happy about the overall production...the farmers needed this bumper crop after flood losses,'' an Agriculture Ministry official said.

-- AFP