Amdadul Haque
Many farmers have expressed sheer frustration as they are not getting fair prices for their harvested bororice paddy.
Over 95 percent boro paddy has been harvested in haor areas while 30 percent across other regions of the country. The rest of the paddy in haor areas will be harvested within the next three or four days, according to agriculture ministry sources.
It is alleged that an organized syndicate of middlemen are buyingthe harvested paddy from the farmers depriving them from seeking fair prices.
Besides, using fake farmersidentity cards such middlemen are also active in depriving genuine farmers. The monitoring system in checking such fraudulence is too weak and therefore the middlemen continues to cheat the farmers.
“We are not getting fair prices of our paddy. Like previous year, the rice mill owners and local traders in many ways compel us to sell our paddies to them at cheaper rates. If we are not freed from the clutches of this organized gang, many farmers like myself would be discouraged to cultivate paddy,” a farmer from Sunamganj told Bangladesh Post on Saturday.
For the last consecutive years, the country has been experiencing good harvest in paddy, but there were grievances among farmers of being denied the right price.
On the contrary, the mill owners claim that the farmers are getting better prices of paddy this year as compared to previous years.
Farmers are counting huge losses due to low price of boro paddy in the country’s haor (wetland) areas after a bumper crop production this year. The crop growers are failing to recover their production cost after selling their agricultural produce. However, the price of rice does not fall at the retailers. Often it is quite costly.
Boro paddy was cultivated across 454,399 hectares of wetlands this year. Rice paddy on 400,906 hectares of land have so far been harvested already, according to the Ministry of Agriculture. However, the farmers are selling their paddy at Tk 600-700 per mound while the production cost is said to be between Tk 700 and Tk 850 per mound, according to local sources.
As the local administration is now very active in the wetland regions during the ongoing crisis, it is urgently needed to substantially increase the amount of government procurement of paddy directly from the farmers at a fair price, the farmer said.
Some 4,45,399 hectares of land in the haor areas (in Kishoreganj, Netrakona, Sunamganj, Moulvibazar, Habiganj, Sylhet, Brahmanbaria districts) have been brought under boro cultivation.
Besides, seven hectares of land in other parts of the country land have also been brought under boro cultivation.
Akmol Hossain, a farmer of Moulvibazar District, said the price of boro paddy is between Tk 600 and Tk 650 per mound at the local market.
Influence of middlemen, including local faria, wholesalers and husking millers, is forcing them to sell boro paddy at the lower prices, many farmers claimed.
However, talking to reporters, Agriculture Minister AbdurRazzak said that the government has taken steps so that the farmers get fair prices of paddy.
The government has decided to procure 800,000 metric tonnes of paddy, 11.5 lakh MT rice (boiled and non-boiled), 75,000 MT of wheat for ensuring fair prices for farmers and food security among the low-income people during coronavirus.
Boro cultivation starts in November-December. Farmers are waiting to harvest the paddy across the country while harvesting of boro paddy has almost been completed in greater haor areas. Boro accounts for more than 50 percent of the country’s total rice production while Aush less than 10 percent, according to the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) data.
